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THE
GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS
lONDON
PRINTED BY GILBEET AND EIVINGTON, LTD.
ST. JOHN'S HOtrSE, CLEKKENWELL, E.C.
THE
GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS
OR
STUDIES IN
EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY
BY
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., Litt.D., D.Litt., D.Lit.
KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
WITH 131 ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME L
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
1904
I
DEDICATE THIS BOOK
ON
THE GODS AND MYTHOLOGY OF EGYPT
BY PEKMISSION
TO THE EIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF CROMER
PRIVY COUNCILLOR, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., K.C.S.L, CLE.
THE EEGENEEx\TOR OF EGYPT
WITH
SINCERE GRATITUDE AND RESPECT
PREFACE
AMONG the various branches of Egyptology which have been
^closely studied during the last twenty-five years, there are
none which are more interesting to inquire into, or more difficult
to understand fully, than the religion and mythology of the inhabi-
tants of the Valley of the Nile. When we consider the number
of works on these subjects which have been written and published,
both by expert Egyptologists and by competent exponents of the
science of religion during that period, such a statement may appear
at first sight to be paradoxical, and many may think when reading
it that some excuse must certainly be made for the philosopher
who asked an eminent professor of Egyptology the somewhat
caustic question, "Is it true that the more the subjects of Egyptian
religion and mythology are studied the less is known about them ? "
The question is, however, thoroughly justified, and every honest
worker will admit that there are at the present time scores of
passages, even in such a comparatively well-known religious com-
pilation as the Booh of the Bead, which are inexplicable, and
scores of allusions of a fundamentally important mythological
character of which the meanings are still unknown. The reasons
for this state of things are many, and the chief of them may be
briefly recalled here.
The custom of relying absolutely upon the information about
the ancient Egyptian religion and mythology, which is reported by
Greek historians, was abandoned by Egyptologists long ago, for
as soon as the native Egyptian religious texts could be read, it
viii PREFACE
became evident that no Greek or Latin writer had any exact
first-hand knowledge of these subjects, and that none of them
succeeded wholly in reproducing accurately in their works the facts
concerning them which they derived from Egyptian books or from
Egyptian priests. This is hardly to be wondered at, for the
cultured Greek writers must have, and did, as we know, look
with mingled pity, and contempt, and ridicule, upon the
animal cults of the Egyptians, and they had no sympathy with
the materialistic beliefs and with the still more materialistic
funeral customs and ceremonies, which have been, from time
immemorial, so dear to certain Hamitic peoples, and so greatly
prized by them. The only beliefs of the Egyptian religion which
the educated Greek or Roman truly understood were those which
characterized the various forms of Aryan religion, namely, the
polytheistic and the solar ; for the forms of the cults of the dead,
and for all the religious ceremonies and observances, which pre-
supposed a belief in the resurrection of the dead and in everlasting
life, and which had been in existence among the indigenous inhabi-
tants of north-east Africa from predynastic times, he had no regard
whatsoever. The evidence on the subject now available indicates
that he was racially incapable of appreciating the importance of
such beliefs to those who held them, and that although, as in the
case of the Ptolemies, he was ready to tolerate, and even, for state
purposes, to adopt them, it was impossible for him to absorb them
into his life. It is important to remember this fact when dealing
with the evidence of Greek and Roman writers on the Egyptian
religion and mythology, for it shows the futility of trying to prove
an absolute identity in the indigenous religions of the Aryans and
Egyptians.
Now, although a true decipherment of the ancient Egyptian
hieratic and hieroglyphic texts has enabled us to draw our in-
PREFACE ix
formation on the religion and mythology of Egypt from native
sources, we have still to contend against the ignorance of Egyptian
scribes and the mistakes of careless copyists, and it must never be
forgotten that the theologians at the court of the Pharaohs under the
XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties were just as ignorant of many facts
connected with their religion and mythology as we ourselves are.
In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the different explanations
of certain passages which are given along with the text in the
xviith Chapter of the Booh of the Dead, and to the childish
punning etymologies of the names of gods and of many myth-
ological explanations which are set down in the texts inscribed on
the walls of some chambers in the tomb of Seti I. at Thebes, and
on the walls of the temple of Horus of Behutet at Edfu. It is
satisfactory to be able to say that many of the absurd etymologies
and trivial explanations which are products of the scribes of old
can now be corrected. Recent researches have shown that the
royal scribes under the ISTew Empire (b.c. 1700-700) were unable
to read correctly the hieratic characters which formed the names of
some of the kings of the early Archaic Period, and this being so,
little surprise need be felt at the difficulties in religious texts
which are due to their ignorance or blunders. Apart from such
considerations, however, the subjects of Egyptian religion and
mythology themselves are full of inherent difficulties, which have,
unfortunately, not been lessened by the manner in which some
Egyptologists have treated them.
The number of the gods, even under the IVth Dynasty, about
B.C. 3600, was very great, and as time went on it multiplied
greatly. The Pyramid Texts, which were written under the IVth,
Vth and YIth Dynasties, supply the names of about two hundred
gods and mythological beings, but in the Booh of the Dead
according to the Theban Eecension (b.c. 1700-1200) over five
X PREFACE
hundred gods are mentioned. If to these be added the names of
all the mythological beings which occur in the various Books of the
Underworld, we shall find that the number of the gods who were
recognized by the theologians of the XlXth Dynast}?- at Thebes
was about twelve hundred. If all the religious texts of this period
from all the religious centres of Egypt were available for study,
we should certainly find that the names of hundreds of additional
local gods, goddesses, and mythological beings could be collected
from them. With such a number of gods to consider, it was
impossible for confusion not to arise in the mind of the Egyptian
when dealing with them, and the texts prove that he found the
gods as difficult to group and classify as the modern investigator.
The attributes of hundreds of them were vague and shadowy, and
the greater number of them were merely provincial gods, to whom
circumstances had given some transient importance, which resulted
in their names being recorded in writing. In fact, the theologian
of ancient Egypt found it impossible to form a system of gods
which should be consistent in all its parts, and should assign to
earth gods, water gods, air gods, village gods, city gods, nome
gods, national gods, and foreign gods, the exact position and
attributes which were their due in it. From one point of view
the modem investigator is more fortunate than the Egyptian
theologian, for he has more materials upon which to work, and, as
a rule, he is better equipped for his inquiry. The Egyptian knew
nothing about the study of comparative religion, and he was sadly
hampered by his own methods.
Modern scientific study of the Egyptian religion and myth-
ology may be said to have begun with the publication in full of the
texts, both hieratic and hieroglyphic, of the Heliopolitan, Theban,
and Saite Recensions of the Book of the Dead (Per-em-hru), and of
the cognate funeral texts, such as "The Book of what is in the
PREFACE xi
Underworld," "The Book of Breathings," "The Book of Trans-
formations," the " Lamentations," and the " Festival Songs of Isis
and Nephthys," &c. The first to attempt to build up on a large
scale a system of Egyptian theology and mythology from ancient
native works was the late De. Heineich Beugsch, who collected
and published in his Religion unci Mythologie der alien ^gypter,
Leipzig, 1885-1888, a mass of facts of the greatest importance, and
a summary of the conclusions which he deduced from them. In
the same year in which the first section of Dr. Brugsch's work
appeared, M. Maspero published in the Revue des Religions (tom.
xii., p. 123 f.) a masterly article, entitled La Religion Egyptienne
d'apres les pyramides de la V et de la FP dynastie, in which he
gave to the world some of the results of his study of the " Pyramid
Texts," which contain the oldest known Recension, i.e., the
Heliopolitan, of the Booh of the Dead. In 1887, Signor
Lanzone published the last part of his Bizionario di Mitologia
Bgizia, which is one of the most valuable contributions to the study
of Egyptian mythology ever made, and which contains the names
of a large number of gods, demons, spirits, etc., arranged alpha-
betically, and a series of drawings of many of them printed in
outline in red ink. In 1888 and 1889, M. Maspero, in two
admirable articles in the Revue des Religions (La Mythologie
Egyptienne, tom. xviii., p. 253 f., and tom. xix., p. 1 f.), discussed
and criticized both the works of Beugsch and Lanzone, and shed a
great deal of new light upon the facts collected in both.
To M. Maspero belongs the credit of being the first to
consider the Egyptian religion and mythology from the anthropo-
logical point of view, and all the evidence on these subjects which
has since become available goes to prove the general correctness of
the opinion which he stated some fifteen or sixteen years ago.
Beugsch, it must be admitted, regarded the origin of Egyptian
xii PREFACE
religion from too lofty a metaphysical and philosophical standpoint,
and appealed for proofs of his contentions to Egyptian texts
belonging to too late a period to be entirely free from the influence
of Greek culture and thought; in fact, he read into certain
Egyptian texts, ideas, doctrines, and beliefs which the primitive
and indigenous Egyptians could never have possessed. On the
other hand, it seems to me that M. Maspero has somewhat
underrated the character of the spiritual conceptions of the
dynastic Egyptians, and that he has done so because, when he
wrote his great article, La Mythologie Egyjptienne, Egyptologists
had not thoroughly realized the distinction which exists between
the primitive or predynastic element in the Egyptian religion and
the Asiatic element. This element was of a solar character
undoubtedly, and was introduced into Egypt by the " Followers of
Horus," or the "Blacksmiths," who invaded the country, and
conquered the natives, and settling down there, built up the great
dynastic civilization which we call Egyptian. This seems to be
the correct explanation of the diversity of view of two such
eminent experts, and the opposite character of their conclusions
appears to be due chiefly to the difference of the standpoints from
which they viewed the subject.
A prolonged study of the religious and mythological texts of
ancient Egypt has convinced me of the futility of attempting to
reconcile the conflicting beliefs and to harmonize the contradictory
statements which are found in them, so long as we regard the
Egyptian religion as "one in its extension and principle." It
must first of all be resolved into its constituent elements, and when
this has been done, it will probably be possible to classify, and
arrange, and assign to their proper sources the various material
and spiritual conceptions and beliefs which the Egyptians heaped
up in their minds and flung together in their religious writings.
PREFACE xiii
It must, moreover, be studied by the light which the science of
comparative religion has given us, and due regard must be paid
to the important evidence on the subject that may be deduced
from the remains and monuments of the Predynastic and Archaic
Periods which have been unearthed during the last few years.
The primitive dwellers in Egypt undoubtedly belonged to a
large and important section of the inhabitants of North-East
Africa, and possessed physical and mental characteristics which
were peculiar to themselves. In the earliest times they were
savages, and lived and died like savages in other parts of the
world ; religious belief of any kind, in the modern sense of the
term, they had none, and they probably regarded the animate and
inanimate objects which they saw about them as akin to them-
selves. At a much later period they peopled the earth, air, sky,
and water with beings of various kinds, and they paid a sort of
homage or worship to certain stones, trees, and living creatures, in
which they assumed that they lived. Some beings were held to
be friendly and others unfriendly ; and it was thought that gifts or
offerings would secure the continuance of the friendship of the
former and avert the hostility of the latter. Friendly beings
gradually became gods, and unfriendly ones were classed as devils,
and in the ceremonies which the Egyptian savage performed in
their honour, and in the incantations which he recited, the magic
of Egypt, the forerunner of her religion, had its origin. The chief
object of the savage Egyptian was self-preservation, and self-
interest was the mainspring of his actions, all of which were
undertaken with a view to material benefits. When he first
becomes known to us in the late Neolithic Period we find that he
possessed a belief in an existence beyond the grave, and that it was
of a material character is proved by the fact that he placed offerings
of food in the graves of the dead. To prevent their return to this
xiv PREFACE
world, and their consequent claim for food and other material
things, the heads of the dead were often severed from their bodies,
and their feet cut off; thus the living made themselves secure in
the possession of their homes, and wives, and goods. Nothing is
known of the Egyptian religion and its ceremonies at this period,
but whatever they were, it is pretty certain that the object of
them all was to secure for themselves after death a renewal of life
which should be full of carnal delights and pleasures, and there is
no doubt that the ideas of a resurrection from the dead and
immortality on these lines were firmly implanted in the native
mind long before the Dynasty Period began.
The cult of Osiris, the dead man deified, and the earliest
forms of his worship, were, no doubt, wholly of African origin ;
these are certainly the oldest elements in the religion of the
Dynastic Period, and the most persistent, for Osiris maintained his
position as the god and judge of the dead from the Predynastic
to the Ptolemaic Period. The Followers of Horus, who brought a
solar religion with them into Egypt from the East, never succeeded
in dislodging Osiris from his exalted position, and his cult survived
undiminished notwithstanding the powerful influence which the
priests of Pa, and the worshippers of Amen, and the votaries of
Aten respectively exercised throughout the country. The heaven
of Osiris was believed to exist in a place where the fields were
fertile and well stocked with cattle, and where meat and drink
were abundant ; the abodes of the blessed were thought to be
constructed after the model of the comfortable Egyptian home-
steads in which they had lived during life, and the ordinary
Egyptian hoped to live in one of these with his wives and parents.
On the other hand, the followers of Ra, the sun-god, believed in a
heaven of a more spiritual character, and their great hope was to
occupy a seat in the boat of the god, and, arrayed in light, to travel
PREFACE
XV
whithersoever he went. They wished to become bright and
shining spirits, and to live upon the celestial meat and drink upon
which he lived ; as he was so they hoped to be in every respect.
The materialistic heaven of Osiris appealed to the masses in Egypt,
and the heaven where Ra lived to the priests of Ea and other solar
gods, and to royal and aristocratic families, and to the members of
the foreign section of the community who were of Eastern
origin.
The various waves of religious thought and feeling, which
swept over Egypt during the five thousand years of her history
which are known to us, did not seriously disturb the cult of
Osiris, for it held out to the people hopes of resurrection and
immortality of a character which no other form of religion could
give. Secure in these hopes the people regarded the various
changes and developments of religious ideas in their country with
equanimity, and modifications in the public worship of the gods,
provided that the religious feasts and processions were not inter-
rupted, moved them but little. Kings and priests from time to
time made attempts to absorb the cult of Osiris into religious
systems of a solar character, but they failed, and Osiris, the man-
god, always triumphed, and at the last, when his cult disappeared
before the religion of the Man Christ, the Egyptians who em-
braced Christianity found that the moral system of the old cult
and that of the new religion were so similar, and the promises of
resurrection and immortality in each so much alike, that they
transferred their allegiance from Osiris to Jesus of Nazareth
without difficulty. Moreover, Isis and the child Horus were
straightway identified with Maey the Virgin and her Son, and in
the apocryphal literature of the first few centuries which followed
the evangelization of Egypt, several of the legends about Isis and
her sorrowful wanderings were made to centre round the Mother
xvi PREFACE
of Cheist. Certain of the attributes of the sister goddesses of
Isis were also ascribed to her, and, like the goddess Neith of Sais,
she was declared to possess perpetual virginity. Certain of the
Egyptian Christian Fathers gave to the Virgin the title "Theo-
tokos," or "Mother of God," forgetting, apparently, that it was an
exact translation of neter mut, | ^v\ , a very old and common title
of Isis. Interesting, however, as such an investigation would be,
no attem|)t has been made in this work to trace out the influ-
ence of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and mythology on
Christianity, for such an undertaking would fill a comparatively
large volume.
From what has been said in the preceding pages the plan
followed in the preparation of the present volumes will be evident.
In the opening chapter an attempt has been made to describe the
religious beliefs of the primitive Egyptians, and to explain how
their later ideas about the " gods " and God grew up, and how they
influenced the religious writings and paintings of the Dynastic
Period. The region which is commonly called Heaven, or the
" Underworld," and its denizens are next considered at some length,
and this section is followed by chapters on the ancient myths of
Ra, the legend of Ra and Isis, and the legend of the destruction of
mankind. The hieroglyphic texts of the myths and legends are
given with interlinear transliteration and translation, so that the
student may verify my statements for himself. Of the minor gods
and demons, of which nothing but the names are known, lists only
are printed. The great gods of Egypt have been grouped as far as
possible, and they are discussed in connection with the various
religious centres to which they belong, e.g., Ptah, Sekhet, and
I-em-hetep with Memphis, Amen, Mut, and Khensu with Thebes,
and the " Great Company " of the gods with Heliopolis. Speaking
generally, the first volume of this work treats of the oldest and
PREFACE xvii
greatest gods and triads of gods of Egypt, and the second, of the
gods of Heliopolis, among whom are included Osiris and the deities
of his funeral cycle. The hymns to the gods have been freely
quoted, because they illustrate so clearly the views which the
Egyptians held concerning them, and the manner in which they
sought to praise them. In a chapter entitled "Miscellaneous
Gods" will be found several lists of gods of the hours, days,
months, winds, Dekans, etc., which I have collected from Dr.
Brugsch's Thesaurus of astronomical and other texts ; for the main
facts given in these volumes the authorities, both ancient and
modern, will be found at the foot of the pages wherein they are
first mentioned.
Most of the portraits of the gods which appear in the coloured
plates have been reproduced from papyri, coffins, etc., but for the
outlines of a few I am indebted to Signor Lanzone's Dizionario
Mitologia Egizia, the value of which has been already mentioned.
It has been thought advisable to print the portraits of the gods
which are not taken from papyri upon a papyrus-coloured ground,
and to enclose each within a coloured border, for the effect is
better, and the plan is consistent with that followed by the
ancient Egyptian artists at aU periods.
My thanks are due to Reginald Lake, Esq., of Messrs.
Gilbert & Rivington, and to Mr. G. E. Hay and Mr. F. Rainer, of
his staff, for the care and attention which they have taken in
printing this work.
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE.
London, September 5th, 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. The Gods of Egypt 1
Appendix : Unas, the Slayer and Eater of the Gods —
Hieroglyphic text with interlinear transliteration
AND translation 45
II. Conception of God and the "Gods" 57
III. Primitive Gods and Nome-Gods . . . . .95
IV. The Companions of the Gods in Heaven .... 156
V. The Underworld 170
VI. Hell and the Damned 263
VII. The oldest Company of the Gods and the Creation . . 282
VIII. History of the Creation of the Gods and of the World —
Hieroglyphic text with interlinear transliteration t
and translation 308
IX. Ea, the Sun-God, and his forms 322
X. The Myths of Ea . .359
XI. The Legend of Ea and Isis — Hieroglyphic text with inter-
linear transliteration and translation .... 372
XII. The Destruction op Mankind — Hieroglyphic text with
interlinear transliteration and translation . . . 388
XIII. Thoth, and Maat and the other Goddesses who were
associated with him . 400
XIV. Hathor and the Hathor-Goddesses 428
XV. The Horus Gods 466
XVI. The Great Triad op Memphis, Ptah, Sekhet, and I-em-hetep 500
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Usertsen II. receiving " life " from the god Sept
2. The serekh of Barneses II.
3. The serpent-headed leopard Setcha
4. The eagle-headed lion Sefer
5. The fabulous beast Sak
6. A fabulous leopard
7. The animal Sha
8. The First Hour of the Night
9. The Second Hour of the Night
10. The Third Hour of the Night
11. The Fourth Hour of the Night
12. The Fifth Hour of the Night
13. The god on the top of the Steps
14. The Eighth Hour of the Night
15. The Ninth Hour of the Night
16. The Tenth Hour of the Night
17. The Eleventh Hour of the Night
18. The gate of the Twelfth Hour of the Night
19. Sunrise ......
20. Book of the Underworld — First Hour
21. Book of the Underworld — Second Hour
22. Book of the Underworld — Third Hour
23. Book of the Underworld — Fourth Hour
24. Book of the Underworld — Fifth Hour
25. Book of the Underworld — Sixth Hour
26. Book of the Underworld — Seventh Hour
27. Book of the Underworld — Eighth Hour
28. Book of the Underworld — Ninth Hour
29. Book of the Underworld — Tenth Hour
30. Book of the Underworld — Eleventh Hour
31. The Oldest Company of the Gods
32. The Cow-goddess Nut
33. Thothmes IV. making offerings to the Sphinx
34. Horus of Behutet armed with a bow and arrows
35. The double god Horus- Set
36. Seker-Asar
37. Ptolemy Euergetes and the Hennu-Boat
38. Asar-Hapi (Serapis) ....
and
FAQE
25
26
59
60
60
61
61
179
181
183
185
187
189
193
195
197
19^
203
204
206
209
213
217, 219
221, 223
225, 227, 229
231, 233, 235, 236
237, 239, 240
243, 245
247, 249
251, 253
282
368
471
club . . 474
475
504
504
513
r
THE
GODS OF THE EOYPTIANS
CHAPTER I
THE GODS OF EGYPT
THE Greek historian Herodotus affirms ^ that the Egyptians
were "beyond measure scrupulous in all matters apper-
" taining to religion," and he made this statement after personal
observation of the care which they displayed in the perform-
ance of religious ceremonies, the aim and object of which
was to do honour to the gods, and of the obedience which they
showed to the behests of the priests who transmitted to them
commands which they declared to be, and which were accepted
as, authentic revelations of the will of the gods. From the
manner in which this writer speaks it is clear that he had no
doubt about what he was saying, and that he was recording a
conviction which had become settled in his mind. He was fully
conscious that the Egyptians worshipped a large number of
animals, and birds, and reptiles, with a seriousness and earnestness
which must have filled the cultured Greek with astonishment, yet
he was not moved to give expression to words of scorn as was
Juvenal,^ for Herodotus perceived that beneath the acts of apparently
1 ii. 64.
3 " Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens
' " Aegyptus porfcenta colat ? crocodilon adorat
" Pars liaec, ilia pavet saturam serpentibus ibin.
" Effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci,
" Dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnone chordae
" Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis.
" lUic aeluros, bic piscem fluminis, illic
B
2 ANTIQUITY OF RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES
foolish and infatuated worship there existed a sincerity which
betokened a firm and implicit belief which merited the respect of
thinking men. It would be wrong to imagine that the Egyptians
were the only people of antiquity who were scrupulous beyond
measure in religious matters, for we know that the Babylonians,
both Sumerian and Semitic, were devoted worshippers of their
gods, and that they possessed a very old and complicated system of
religion ; but there is good reason for thinking that the Egyptians
were more scrupulous than their neighbours in religious matters,
and that they always bore the character of being an extremely
religious nation. The evidence of the monuments of the Egyptians
proves that from the earliest to the latest period of their history
the observance of religious festivals and the performance of
religious duties in connexion Avith the worship of the gods absorbed
a very large part of the time and energies of the nation, and
if we take into consideration the funeral ceremonies and services
commemorative of the dead which were performed by them at the
tombs, a casual visitor to Egypt who did not know how to look
below the surface might be pardoned for declaring that the
" Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Diaiiam.
" Porruni et caepe nefas violare et frangere raorsu :
" 0 sanctas gentes, quibus haec Bascuntur in liortis
" Numina ! Lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis
" Mensa, nefas illic fetum ingulare capellae :
" Carnibus humanis vesci licet." — Satire, xv. 1 — 13.
That the crocodile, ibis, dog-headed ape, and fish of vai-ious kinds were venerated
in Egypt is true enough ; they were not, however, venerated in dynastic times as
animals, but as the abodes of gods. In certain localities peculiar sanctity was
attributed to the leek and onion, as Juvenal suggests, but neither vegetable was an
object of worship in the country generally ; and there is no monumental evidence
to show that the eating of human flesh was practised, for it is now known that
even the predynastic Egyptians did not eat the flesh of the dead and gnaw their
bones, as was once rashly asserted. Juvenal's statements ai'e only partly true, and
some of them are on a par with that of a learned Indian who visited England, and
wrote a book on this country after his return to Bombay. Speaking of the religion
of the English he declared that they were all idolaters, and to prove this assertion
he gave a list of churches in which he had seen a figure of a lamb in the sculpture
work over and about the altar, and in prominent places elsewhere in the churches.
The Indian, like Juvenal, and Cicero also, seems not to have understood that
many nations have regarded animals as symbols of gods and divine powers, and
still do so.
DIVINE ORIGIN OF KINGS 3
Egyptians were a nation of men who were wholly given up to the
worship of beasts and the cult of the dead.
The Egyptians, however, acted in a perfectly logical manner,
for they believed that they Avere a divine nation, and that they
were ruled by kings who were themselves gods incarnate ;
their earliest kings, they asserted, were actually gods, who did
not disdain to live upon earth, and to go about and up and down
through it, and to mingle with men. Other ancient nations were
content to believe that they had been brought into being by the
power of their gods operating upon matter, but the Egyptians
believed that they were the issue of the great God who created the
universe, and that they were of directly divine origin. When the
gods ceased to reign in their proper persons upon earth, they were
succeeded by a series of demi-gods, who were in turn succeeded
by the Manes, and these were duly followed by kings in whom was
enshrined a divine nature with characteristic attributes. When
the physical or natural body of a king died, the divine portion of
his being, i.e., the spiritual body, returned to its original abode
with the gods, and it was duly worshipped by men upon earth as
a god and with the gods. This happy result was partly brought
about by the performance of certain ceremonies, which were at
first wholly magical, but later partly magical and partly religious,
and by the recital of appropriate words uttered in the duly
prescribed tone and manner, and by the keeping of festivals at
the tombs at stated seasons when the appointed offerings were
made, and the prayers for the welfare of the dead were said.
From the earliest times the worship of the gods went hand in hand
with the deification of dead kings and other royal personages, and
the worship of departed monarchs from some aspects may be
regarded as meritorious as the worship of the gods. From one
point of view Egypt was as much a land of gods as of men, and
the inhabitants of the country wherein the gods lived and moved
naturally devoted a considerable portion of their time upon earth
to the worship of divine beings and of their ancestors who had
departed to the land of the gods. In the matter of religion, and
all that appertains thereto, the Egyptians were a " peculiar
people," and in all ages they have exhibited a tenacity of belief
4 NUMBER AND VAllIETY OF GODS
and a conservatism which distinguish them from all the other
great nations of antiquity.
But the Egyptians were not only renowned for their devotion
to religious observances, they were famous as much for the
variety as for the number of their gods. Animals, birds, fishes,
and reptiles were worshipped by them in all ages, but in addi-
tion to these they adored the great powers of nature as Avell
as a large number of beings with which they peopled the heavens,
the air, the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and
the water. In the earliest times the predynastic Egyptians, in
common with every half-savage peojile, believed that all the
various operations of nature were the result of the actions of beings
which were for the most part unfriendly to man. The inunda-
tion Avhich rose too high and flooded the primitive village, and
drowned their cattle, and destroyed their stock of grain, was
regarded as the result of the working of an unfriendly and
unseen power ; and when the river rose just high enough
to irrigate the land whicli had been prepared, they either thought
that a friendly power, Avhicli was stronger than that whicli
caused the destroying flood, had kept the hostile power in check,
or that the spirit of the river was on that occasion pleased with
them. They believed in the existence of spirits of the air, and
in spirits of mountain, and stream, and tree, and all these had
to be propitiated with gifts, or cajoled and wheedled into bestow-
ing their favour and protection upon their suppliants.
It is very unfortunate that the animals, and tlie spirits of
natural objects, as well as the powers of nature, were all
grouped together by the Egyptians and were described by the
word NETERU, which, with considerable inexactness, we are
obliged to translate by " gods." There is no doubt that at a
very early period in their predynastic history the Egyptians
distinguished between great gods and little gods, just as they did
between friendly gods and hostile gods, but either their poverty
of expression, or the inflexibility of their language, prevented
them from making a distinction apparent in writing, and thus
it happens that in dynastic times, when a lofty conception of
monotheism prevailed among the priesthood, the scribe found
GOD AND ''GODS" AND ANGELS 5
himself obliged to call both God and the lowest of the beings that
were supposed to possess some attribute of divinity by one and the
same name, i.e., neter. Other nations of antiquity found a way
out of the difficulty of grouping all classes of divine beings by one
name by inventing series of orders of angels, to each of which
they gave names and assigned various duties in connexion with
the service of the Deity. Thus in the Kur'an (Sura xxxv.) it is
said that God maketh the angels His messengers and that they
are furnished with two, or three, or four pairs of wings, accord-
ing to their rank and importance ; the archangel Gabriel is said
to have been seen by Muhammad the Prophet with six hundred
pairs of wings ! The duties of the angels, according to the
Muhammadans, were of various kinds. Thus nineteen angels are
appointed to take charge of hell fire (Sura Ixxiv.) ; eight are set
apart to support God's throne on the Day of Judgment (Sura
Ixix.) : several tear the souls of the wicked from their bodies
with violence, and several take the souls of the righteous from
their bodies with gentleness and kindness (Sura Ixxix.) ; two
angels are ordered to accompany every man on earth, the one to
write do^vn his good actions and the other his evil deeds, and these
will appear with him at the Day of Judgment, the one to lead him
before the Judg-e, and the other to bear witness either for or
against him (Sura 1.). Muhammadan theologians declare that the
angels are created of a simple substance of light, and that they
are endowed with life, and speech, and reason ; they are in-
capable of sin, they have no carnal desire, they do not propagate
their species, and they are not moved by the passions of wrath
and anger ; their obedience is absolute. Their meat is the
celebrating of the glory of God, their drink is the proclaiming of
His holiness, their conversation is the commemorating of God, and
their pleasure is His worship. Curiously enough, some are said
to have the form of animals. Four of the angels are Archangels,
viz. Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, and Israfel, and they possess special
powers, and special duties are assigned to them. These four are
superior to all the human race, with the exception of the Prophets
and Apostles, but the angelic nature is held to be inferior to
human nature because all the angels were commanded to worship
6 MUHAMMADAN AND SYRIAN ANGELS
Adam {Siira ii.). The above and many other characteristics
might be cited in proof that the angels of the Muliammadans
possess much in common with the inferior gods of the Egyptians,
and though many of the conceptions of the Arabs on this point
were undoubtedly borrowed from the Hebrews and their writings,
a great many must have descended to them from their own early
ancestors.
Closely connected with these Muhammadan theories, though
much older, is the system of angels which was invented by the
Syrians. In this we find the angels divided into nine classes and
three orders, u|)per, middle, and lower. The upper order is
composed of Cherabim, Seraphim, and Thrones ; the middle order
of Lords, Powers, and Rulers ; and the lower order of Princi-
palities, Archangels, and Angels. The middle order receives
revelations from those above them, and the lower order are the
ministers who wait upon created things. The highest and fore-
most among the angels is Gabriel, who is the mediator between
God and His creation. The Archangels in this system are
described as a " swift operative motion," which has dominion over
every living thing except man ; and the Angels are a motion
which has spiritual knowledge of everything that is on earth and
in heaven.^ The Syrians, like the Muliammadans, borrowed largely
from the Avritings of the Hebrews, in Avhose theological system
angels played a very prominent part. In the Syrian system also
the angels possess much in common with the inferior gods of the
Egyptians.
The inferior gods of the Egyptians were supposed to suffer
from many of the defects of mortal beings, and they were even
thought to grow old and to die, and the same ideas about the
angels were held by Muhammadans and Plebrews. According to
the former, the angels will perish when heaven, their abode, is
made to pass away at the Day of Judgment. iVccording to the
latter, one of the two great classes of angels, i.e., those which were
created on the fifth day of creation, is mortal ; on the other hand,
the angels which were created on the second day of creation
'^ See my edition of the Jiook of tlic Bee, by Solomon of Al-Basra. Oxford,
1886, pp. 9-n.
HEBREW ANGELS OR ^'GODS" 7
endure for ever, and these may be fitly compared with the
unfailing and unvarying powers of nature which were personified
and worshipped by the Egyptians ; of the angels which perish,
some spring from fire, some from water, and some from wind.
The angels are grouped into ten classes, i.e., the Erelim, the Ishim,
the Bene Elohim, the Malachim, the Hashmahm, the Tarshishim,
the Shishanira, the Cherubim, the Ophannim, and the Seraphim ; ^
amono; these were divided all the duties connected with the
ordering of the heavens and the earth, and they, according to
their position and importance, became the interpreters of the Will
of the Deity. A comparison of the passages in Rabbinic literature
which describe these and similar matters connected with the
angels, spirits, etc., of ancient Hebrew mythology with Egyptian
texts shows that both the Egyptians and Jews possessed many
ideas in common, and all the evidence goes to prove that the
latter borrowed from the former in the earliest period.
In comparatively late historical times the Egyptians intro-
duced into their company of gods a few deities from Western
Asia, but these had no effect in modifying the general character
either of their religion or of their worship. The subject of com-
parative Egyptian and Semitic mythology is one which has yet
to be worked thoroughly, not because it Avould supply us with
the original forms of Egyptian myths and legends, but because it
would show what modifications such things underwent when
adopted by Semitic peoples, or at least by peoples who had
Semitic blood in their veins. Some would compare Egyptian and
Semitic mythologies on the ground that the Egyptians and
Semites were kinsfolk, but it must be quite clearly understood
that this is pure assumption, and is only based on the state-
ments of those who declare that the Egyptian and Semitic
languages are akin. Others again have sought to explain
the mythology of the Egyptians by appeals to Aryan mythology^
and to illustrate the meanings of important Egyptian words in
religious texts by means of Aryan etymologies, but the results
are wholly unsatisfactory, and they only serve to show the futility
1 See the chapter " Was die Judeu von den guten Engeln lehren " in Eisen-
menger, Entdechten Judenihums, vol. ii. p. 370 ff.
8 THE OLDEST GODS OF EGYPT
of comparing the mythologies of two peoples of different race
occupying quite different grades in the ladder of civilization. It
cannot be too strongly insisted on that all the oldest gods of Egypt
are of Egyptian origin, and that the fundamental religious beliefs
of the Egyptians also are of Egyptian origin, and that both the
gods and the beliefs date from predynastic times, and have nothing
whatever to do with the Semites or Aryans of history.
Of the origin of the Egyptian of the Palaeolithic and early
Neolithic Periods, we, of course, know nothing, but it is tolerably
certain that the Egyptian of the latter part of the Neolithic Period
was indigenous to North-East Africa, and that a very large
number of the great gods worshipped by the dynastic Egyptian
were Avorshipped also by his jDredecessor in predynastic times.
The conquerors of the Egyptians of the Neolithic Period who,
with good reason, have been assumed to come from the East and
to have been more or less akin to the Proto- Semites, no doubt
brought about certain modifications in the worship of those whom
they had vanquished, but they could not have succeeded in
abolishing the various gods in animal and other forms which were
worshipped throughout the length and breadth of the country,
for these continued to be venerated until the time of the Ptolemies.
We have at present no means of knoAving how far the religious
beliefs of the conquerors influenced the conquered peoples of
Egypt, but viewed in the light of well-ascertained facts it seems
tolerably certain that no great change took place in the views
which the indigenous peoples held concerning their gods as the
result of the invasion of foreigners, and that if any foreign gods
were introduced into the company of indigenous, predynastic gods,
they were either quickly assimilated to or wholly absorbed by them.
Speaking generally, the gods of the Egyptians remained unchanged
throughout all the various periods of the history of Egypt, and the
minds of the people seem always to have had a tendency towards
the maintenance of old forms of worship, and to the preservation
of the ancient texts in which such forms were prescribed and old
beliefs were enshrined. The Egyptians never forgot the ancient
gods of the country, and it is typical of the spirit of conservatism
which they displayed in most things that even in the Roman
INDIGENOUS BELIEFS 9
Period pious folk among them were buried with the same prayers
and with the same ceremonies that had been employed at the
burial of Egyptians nearly five thousand years before. The
Egyptian of the Roman Period, like the Egyptian of the Early
Empire, was content to think that his body would be received in
the tomb by the jackal-headed Anubis ; that the organs of his
corruptible body AYould be presided over and guarded by animal-
headed gods ; that the reading of the pointer of the Great Scales,
wherein his heart was weighed, would be made known by an ape
to the ibis-headed scribe of the gods, whom we know by the name
of Thoth ; and that the beatified dead would be introduced to the
god Osiris by a hawk-headed god called Horus, son of Isis, who in
many respects was the counterpart of the god Heru-ur, the oldest
of all the gods of Egypt, whose type and symbol was the hawk.
From first to last the indigenous Egyptian paid little heed to the
events which happened outside his own country, and neither
conquest nor invasion by foreign nations had any effect upon his
personal belief. He continued to cultivate his land diligently,
he worshipped the gods of his ancestors blindly, like them he
spared no pains in making preparations for the preservation of his
mummified body, and the heaven which he hoped to attain was
fashioned according to old ideas of a fertile homestead, well
stocked with cattle, where he would enjoy the company of his
parents, and be able to worship the local gods whom he had
adored upon earth. The priestly and upper classes certainly held
views on these subjects which differed from those of the husband-
man, but it is a significant fact that it was not the religion and
mythology of the dynastic Egyptian, but that of the indigenous,
predynastic Egyptian, with his animal gods and fantastic and
half-savage beliefs, which strongly coloured the religion of the
country in all periods of her history, and gave to her the charac-
teristics which were regarded with astonishment and wonder by
all the peoples who came in contact with the Egyptians.
The predynastic Egyptians in the earliest stages of their
existence, like most savage and semi-savage peoples, believed that
the sea, the earth, the air, and the sky were filled to overflowing
with spirits, some of whom were engaged in carrying on the works
10 BELIEF IN SPIRITS
of nature, and others in aiding or obstructing man in the course
of his existence upon earth. Whatsoever happened in nature was
attributed by them to the operations of a large number of spiritual
beings, the life of whom was identical with the life of the great
natural elements, and the existence of whom terminated with the
destruction of the objects which they were supposed to animate.
Such spirits, although invisible to mental eyes, were very real
creatures in their minds, and to them they attributed all the
passions which belong to man, and all his faculties and powers
also. Everything in nature was inhabited by a spirit, and it was
thought possible to endow a representation, or model, or figure of
any object with a spirit or soul, provided a name was given to it ;
this spirit or soul lived in the drawing or figure until the object
which it animated was broken or destroyed. The objects, both
natural and artificial, which we consider to be inanimate were
regarded by the predynastic Egyptians as animate, and in many
respects they were thought to resemble man himself. The spirits
who infested every part of the visible world were countless in
forms, and they differed from each other in respect of power;
the spirit that caused the Inundation of the Nile was greater than
the one that lived in a canal, the spirit that made the sun to
shine was more powerful than the one that governed the moon,
and the spirit of a great tree was mightier than the one that
animated an ear of corn or a blade of grass. The difference
between the supposed powers of such spirits must have been
distinguished at a very early period, and the half-savage inhabi-
tants of Egypt must at the same time have made a sharp distinc-
tion between those whose operations Avere beneficial to them, and
those whose actions brought upon them injury, loss, or death. It
is easy to see how they might imagine that certain great natural
objects were under the dominion of spirits who Avere capable of
feeling wrath, or displeasure, and of making it manifest to man.
Thus the spirit of the Nile would be regarded as beneficent and
friendly when the waters of the river rose sufficiently during the
period of the Inundation to ensure an abundant crop throughout
the land ; but when their rise was excessive, and they drowned the
cattle and washed away the houses of the people, whether made of
ANIMALS AND REPTILES 11
wattles or mud, or when they rose insufficiently and caused want
and famine, the spirit of the Nile Avould be considered unfriendly
and evil to man. An ample and sufficient Inundation was
regarded as a sign that the spirit of the Nile was not displeased
with man, but a destructive flood was a sure token of displeasure.
The same feeling exists to this day in Egypt among the peasant-
farmers, for several natives told me in 1899, the year of the lowest
rise of the Nile of the XlXth century,^ that " Allah was angry
with them, and would not let the water come " ; and one man
added that in all his life he had never before known Allah to be so
angry with them.
The spirits which were always hostile or unfriendly towards man,
and were regarded by the Egyptians as evil spirits, were identified
with certain animals and reptiles, and traditions of some of these
seem to have been preserved until the latest period of dynastic his-
tory. Apep, the serpent- devil of mist, darkness, storm, and night,
of whom more will be said later on, and his fiends, the " children of
rebellion," were not the result of the imagination of the Egyptians
in historic times, but their existence dates from the period when
Egypt was overrun by mighty beasts, huge serpents, and noxious
reptiles of all kinds. The great serpent of Egyptian mythology,
which was indeed a formidable opponent of the Sun-god, had its
prototype in some monster serpent on earth, of which tradition had
preserved a record ; and that this is no mere theory is proved by
the fact that the remains of a serpent, which must have been of
enormous size, have recently been found in the FayyCim. The
vertebrae are said to indicate that the creature to which they
belonged was longer than the largest python known. ^ The allies
of the great serpent-devil Apep were as hostile to man as
was their master to the Sun-god, and they were regarded with
terror by the minds of those who had evolved them. On the other
liand, there were numbers of s|)irits whose actions were friendly
1 In October, 1899, the level of tlie water of Lake Victoria was 2 ft. below the
normal, and in December the level at Aswan was 5 ft. 8 ins. below the average of
previous years.
" "If the proportions of this snake were the same as in the existing Python
'■'■ seboe it probably reached a length of thirty feet." C. W. Andrews, D.Sc, in
Geological Mag., vol. viii., 1901, p, 438.
12 HEAVEN AND HELL
and beneficial to man, and some of these were supposed to do battle
on his behalf against the evil spirits.
Thus at a very early period the predynastic Egyptian must
have conceived the existence of a great company of spirits whose
goodwill, or at all events whose inaction, could only be obtained by
bribes, i.e., offerings, and cajolery and flattery ; and of a second
large company whose beneficent deeds to man he was wont to
acknowledge and whose powerful help he Avas anxious to draw
towards himself; and of a third company who were supposed to be
occupied solely with making the sun, moon, and stars to shine, and
the rivers and streams to flow, and the clouds to form and the rain
to fall, and who, in i'act, were ahvays engaged in carrying out
diligently the workings and evolutions of all natural things, both
small and great. The spirits to whom in predynastic times the
Egyptians ascribed a nature malicious or unfriendly towards man,
and who were regarded much as modern nations have regarded
goblins, hobgoblins, gnomes, trolls, elves, etc., developed in dynastic
times into a corporate society, with aims, and intentions, and acts
wholly evil, and with a government which was devised by the
greatest and most evil of their number. To these, in process of
time, were joined the spirits of evil men and women, and the
prototype of hell was formed by assuming the existence of a place
where evil spirits and their still more evil chiefs lived together.
By the same process of imagination beneficent and friendly spirits
were grouped together in one abode under the direction of rulers
who were well disposed towards man, and this idea became the
nucleus of the later conception of the heaven to which the souls of
good men and women were supposed by the Egyptian to depart,
after he had developed sufficiently to conceive the doctrine of
immortality. The chiefs of the company of evil spirits subsequently
became the powerful devils of historic times, and the rulers of the
company of beneficent and good spirits became the gods ; the spirits
of the third company, i.e., the spirits of the powers of Nature,
became the great cosmic gods of the dynastic Egyptians. The cult
of this last class of spirits, or gods, differed in many ways from that
of the spirits or gods who were supposed to be concerned entirely
with the welfare of man, and in dynastic times there are abundant
ANTIQUITV OF EGYPTIAN MAGIC 13
proofs of this in religious texts and compositions. In the hymns to
the Sun-god, under whatsoever name he is worshipped, we find that
the greatest wonder is expressed at his majesty and glory, and that
he is apostrophised in terms which show forth the awe and fear of
his devout adorer. His triumphant j)assage across the sky is
described, the unfailing regularity of his rising and setting is
mentioned, reference is made to the vast distance over which he
passes in a moment of time, glory is duly ascribed to him for the
great works which he performs in nature, and full recognition is
given to him as the creator of men and animals, of birds and fish,
of trees and plants, of reptiles, and of all created things ; the
praise of the god is full and sufficient, yet it is always that of a
finite being who appears to be overwhelmed at the thought of the
power and might of an apparently infinite being. The petitions
lack the personal appeal which we find in the Egyptian's prayers
to the man-god Osiris, and show that he regarded the two gods
from entirely different points of view. It is impossible to say how
early this distinction between the functions of the two gods was
made, but it is certain that it is coeval with the beginnings of
dynastic history, and that it was observed until very late times.
The element of magic, which is the oldest and most persistent
characteristic of the worship of the gods and of the Egyptian
religion, generally belongs to the period before this distinction was
arrived at, and it is clear that it dates from the time when man
thought that the good and evil spirits were beings who Avere not
greatly different from himself, and who could be propitiated with
gifts, and controlled by means of words of power and by the per-
formance of ceremonies, and moved to action by hymns and
addresses. This belief was present in the minds of the Egyptians
in all ages of their history, and it exists in a modified form among
the Muhammadan Egyptians and Sudani men to this day. It is
true that they proclaim vehemently that there is no god but God,
and that Muhammad is His Prophet, and that God's power is
infinite and absolute, but they take care to guard the persons of
themselves and their children from the Evil Eye and from the
assaults of malicious and evil spirits, by means of amulets of all
kinds as zealously now as their ancestors did in the days before
14 EVII. SPIRITS
the existence of God Who is One was conceived. The caravan
men protect their camels from the Evil Eye of the spirits of the
desert by fastening bright-coloured beads between the eyes of their
beasts, and by means of long fringes Avhich hang from their
mahlufas, or saddles, and in spite of their firm belief in the infinite
power of God, they select an auspicious day on which to set out
on a journey, and they never attempt to pass certain isolated
caves, or ravines, or mountains, in the night time. All the
members of the great family of the Jinn are to them as real to-day
as their equivalents were to the ancient Egyptians, and, from the
descriptions of desert spirits which are given by those who have
been fortunate enough to see them, it is clear that traditions of
the form and appearance of ancient Egyptian fiends and evil
spirits have been unconsciously j)reserved until the present day.
The modern Egyptians call them by Arabic names, but the
descriptions of them agree well with those which might be made
of certain genii that appear in ancient Egyptian mytliological
works treating of the Underworld and its inhabitants.
The peoples of the Eastern Sudan, who are also Muhammadans,
have inherited many ideas and beliefs from the ancient Egyptians,
and this is not to be wondered at when we remember that the
civilization of Nubia from the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty
to the end of the XXVIth, i.e., from about B.C. 1550 to about
B.C. 550, was nothing but a slavish copy of that of Egypt. A
stay of some months in the village at the foot of Jebel Barkal,
which mai'ks the site of a part of the old Nubian city of Napata,
convinced me of this fact, and visits to other places in the Eastern
Sudan proved that these ideas and beliefs were widespread. The
hills and deserts are, according to native belief, peopled with
spirits, which are chiefly of a disposition unfriendly to man, and
they are supposed to have the power of entering both human
beings and animals almost at pleasure. Palm-trees die or become
unfruitful, and cattle fall sick through the operations of evil spirits,
and any misfortune which comes upon the community or upon the
individual is referred to the same cause. The pyramids, which
they call tarahll, on the hill, are viewed witli almost childish fear
by the natives who, curiously enough, speak of the royal personages
MODERN SUDANI SUPERSTITIONS 15
buried therein as illdhdt, or "gods," and none of them, if it can
possibly be avoided, will go up after sundown into " the mountain,"
as they call the sandstone ridge on which they are built. Tombs
and cemeteries are carefully avoided at night as a matter of course,
but to approach the pyramids at night is regarded as a wilful act
which is sure to bring down upon the visitor the wrath of the
spirits of the kings, who have by some means acquired a divine
character in the eyes of the natives. When I was opening one of
the pyramids at Jebel Barkal in 1897, Muhammad wad Ibrahim,
the shekh of the village, tried to keep the workmen at work as
long as daylight lasted, but after this had been done for two or
three evenings, several of the wives of the men appeared and
carried off their husbands, fearing they should either be bewitched,
or suffer some penalty for intrusion in that place at the time when,
in popular opinion, the spirits of the dead came forth to enjoy the
cool of the evening. The same idea prevailed further south among
the people who lived on the river near the pyramids of Bakrawiyeh,
which mark the site of the royal necropolis of the ancient city of
Berua, or Marua, i.e., Meroe. The local shekh was appointed to
go with me and to help in taking measurements of some of the
pyramids at this place, but when we were about half a mile from
them he dismounted, and said he could go no further because he
was afraid of the spirits of the gods, illdhdt, who were buried there.
After much persuasion he consented to accompany me, but nothing
would iaduce him to let the donkeys go to the pyramids ; having
hobbled them and tied them to a large stone he came on, but
seated himself on the ground at the northern end of the main
group of pyramids, and nothing would persuade him to move
about among the ruins. The natives of Jebel Barkal viewed the
work of excavation with great disfavour from the very first, and
their hostile opinion was confirmed by the appearance at the
pyramids of great numbers of wasps, which, they declared, were
larger than any which they had seen before ; they were convinced
that they were evil spirits who had taken the form of wasps, and
that evil was coming upon their village. It was useless to explain
to them that the wasps only came there to drink from the water-
skins, which were kept full and hung there on pegs driven into the
16 MODERN SUDANI SUPERSTITIONS
masonry for the use of the workmen ; and when a harmless snake,
about eight feet long, which had also crawled there to drink, was
killed one morning by the men, their fears of impending evil were
confirmed, for they were certain that the spirit of a king had been
killed, and they expected that vengeance would be taken upon
them by the divine spirits of his companions.
About halfway up Jebel Barkal there lived four large hawks
which always seemed to be following any person who ascended the
mountain, but yet never came very near ; these were always
regarded by the natives as the embodied spirits of the gods whose
figures still remain sculptured and painted on the walls of the rock-
hewn sanctuary at the foot of the hill, and I never heard of any
attempt being made to shoot or snare them by the people of the
villages of Barkal, Shibba, or Marawi. The inhabitants could not
know that the hawk was probably the first living creature which
was worshipped in the Nile Valley, and therefore the respect which
they paid to the hawks must have been due to a tradition which
had been handed down to them throuo;h countless o-enerations from
a past age. Their connecting the hawks with the figures of the
gods sculptured in the sanctuary of Amen-Ra is worthy of note,
for it seems to show that on such matters they thought along the
same lines as their ancestors.
Concerning amulets, the Sudani man is as superstitious as
were his ancestors thousands of years ago, and he still believes that
stones of certain colours possess magical properties, especially when
inscribed with certain symbols, of the meaning of which, however,
he has no knowledge, but which are due, he says, to the presence of
spirits in them. Women and children, especially female children,
protect many parts of their bodies with strings of beads made of
magical stones, and sometimes with plaques of metal or stone, which
are cut into various shapes and ornamented with signs of magical
power ; the positions of such plaques on the body are frequently
identical with those whereon the dynastic Egyptians laid amulets
on the dead, and, if we could learn from the Sudani folk the reasons
which prompt them to make use of such things, we should probably
find that the beliefs which underlie the customs are also identical.
The above facts concerning the Sudani belief in spirits might be
IDEAS ABOUT THE BEETLE 17
greatly multiplied, and they are not so remotely connected with the
beliefs of the dynastic, and even predynastic, Egyptians, as may
appear to be the case at first sight, and the writer believes that a
large amount of information of a similar kind awaits the investigator,
who will devote the necessary time to living in some of the out-of-
the-way villages of the black (not negro) peoples who dAvell on the
eastern bank of the Nile and of the Blue Mle.
In many isolated places in Southern Nubia and the Eastern
Sudan are trees which men regard with reverence, but this may
be the result of contact with the natives of Central Africa, where
people pray to trees on certain occasions,^ believing that the spirits
which are supposed to dwell in them can bestowgifts upon those whom
they regard with favour, and ensure safety both to themselves and
their animals when travelling. Still further to the south certain
animals, e.g., the cynocephalus ape, which plays such a prominent
part in dynastic Egyptian mythology, are supposed to be inhabited
by divine spirits and to possess extraordinary powers of intelligence
in consequence, and the various kinds of scarabaei, or beetles, are
thought to be animated by spirits, which the natives connect with
the sun. The dead bodies of these insects were, in former days,
often eaten by women who wished to become mothers of large
families, and to this day parts of them are cooked, and treated
with oil, and made into medicines ^ for the cure of sore eyes, etc.
The dynastic Egyptians believed that the scarab was connected
1 " Under the wide-spreading branches of an enormous heglik-tree, and on a
" spot beautifully clean and sprinkled with fine sand, the Bedeyat beseech an
" unknown god to du^ect them in their undertakings and to protect them from
" danger." Slatin Pasha, Fire- and Sivord in the Sudan, London, 1896, p. 114*.
3 Ibrahim Rushdi, Clerk of Telegraphs at Benha, in Lower Egypt, told me in
January, 1895, that in many districts the beetles were boiled, and the grease
extracted from them ; as they are being boiled the shells come off. The bodies are
next roasted in olive oil, and then steeped in myrrh, and after this they are
macerated in that liquid, and strained through muslin; the liquid which runs
through is believed to cure the itching which is caused by a certain internal ailment.
Some men drink a few drops of it in each cup of coffee, and women drink it to
make them fat. The old women have a prescription for sore eyes, which is as
follows : — Stick a splinter of wood through a series of beetles for twelve hours
when a child is about to be born ; when the child is born, pull the splinter out of
the last beetle, and dip it in Tcohl, and rub the eyes of the child with it. If this
be done in the proper way the child will never suffer from sore eyes.
C
18 FORMS OF EVIL SPIRITS
with the Sun-god Ra, and in religious texts of all periods it is
said that the beetle occupied a place in the boat of this god.
We have already seen that the dynastic Egyptians, and their
predecessors, conceived the existence of spirits hostile towards
man, of spirits beneficent towards man, and of spirits which were
wholly occupied with carrying out the various operations of
Nature, and we must now consider the manner and forms in which
they became visible to man. The commonest form in which a
spirit was believed to make itself visible to man was that of some
beast, or bird, or fish, or reptile, and at a very early period
adoration, in one form or another, of the so-called inferior animals
was well-nigh universal in Egypt. At the time when this worship
began animals, as well as inanimate objects, were not considered
by the inhabitants of the Nile Valley to be greatly removed from
themselves in intelligence. Primitive man saw nothing ridiculous
in attributing speech to inanimate objects and animals, which
were supposed to think, and reason, and act like human beings ;
and the religious literature of many of the most ancient nations
contains numerous proofs of this fact. Among the baked clay
tablets found in the ruins of the Royal Library of Nineveh, which
contained copies of hundreds of documents preserved in the temples
of the most ancient cities of Babylonia, were fragments of a
dialogue between a horse and an ox, which is now known as the
" Fable of the Horse and the Ox," ^ and it is tolerably certain that
this dialogue did not originate in the reign of Ashur-bani-pal
(b.c. 668-626), although the tablet on which it was written is
not older than his time. Again, in the Creation Legend the
dragon-monster Tiamat, the representative of the powers of evil
and darkness, is made to conspire against the gods, and to create
a serpent brood ^ in order to do effective battle with them ; and
other instances might be quoted to show that the Babylonians and
Assyrians attributed to the animals reason, passions, and language.
1 See Guide to the Bahylonum and Assyrian Antiquities, London, 1900, p. 48 ;
the fragments are exhibited in the Biitish Museum, Nineveh Gallery, Table-case C.
~ Ibid, p. 36. For the cuneiform tablets in the British Maseum see Nineveh
Galler , Table-case A. See also L. W. King, Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. i.,
p. 1 ff.
TALKING ANIMALS, TREES, ETC. 19
From the Bible we learn that the Hebrews held the same
views as their kinsmen on this matter, and we are told that the
serpent beguiled and seduced Eve by his speech, and made her
break the command of the Lord (G-enesis iii. 1 ff.)? and that the
she-ass of Balaam remonstrated with her master and asked him
why he had smitten her three times (Numbers xxii. 28). We may
note in passing that this animal is said to have been able to see the
Angel of the Lord standing in the way, whilst her master could
not, and we are forcibly reminded of the belief which was current
among Jews and Muliammadans to the effect that dogs howled
before a death because they were able to see the Angel of Death
going about on his mission, to say nothing of our own superstition
to the same effect, which, however, we seem to have derived not
from the East, but from cognate northern European nations. We
see also from the Book of Judges (ix. 8 ff.) that speech and reason
were sometimes attributed to objects which we regard as inanimate,
for we read that the trees " went forth on a time to anoint a king
'' over them ; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us."
When the olive tree refused, they went to the fig tree with the
same request, and when the fig tree refused, they went to the vine,
which refused to leave its wine " which cheereth Grod and man " ;
on this they applied to the bramble, which placed before them the
choice of coming and putting their trust in its shadow, or of being
burnt by the fire which should come forth from out of itself. In
connexion with this idea may, perhaps, be mentioned the incident
recorded in Numbers xxi. 17, wherein we are told that the princes
and nobles digged a well " with their staves " by the direction of
the lawgiver, and that the Children of Israel sang this song,
"Spring up, 0 well; sing ye unto it." Many other examples
might be quoted from Hebrew literature to show that animals and
inanimate objects were on certain occasions regarded as beings which
possessed thinking and reasoning powers similar to those of men.
Among the Egyptians animals thought, and reasoned, and
spoke as a matter of course, and their literature is full of indica-
tions that they believed them to be moved by motives and passions
similar to those of human beings. As a typical example may be
quoted the instance of the cow, in the Tale of the Two Brothers^
20 THE DOG-HEADED APE
who tells her herd that his elder brother is standing behind the
door of the byre with his dagger in his hand waiting to slay him ;
the young man having seen the feet of his brother under the door
took to flight, and so saved his life. Here we have another proof
that animals were sometimes credited with superhuman intelligence
and discernment, since but for the warning of the cow, who had
perceived what her master had failed to notice, the herd would
have been slain as soon as he entered the byre. Here, too, must
be noted the very important part which is played in the Judgment
Scene in the Booh of the Dead by animals. In the Story of the
Shijnvrech also we are told concerning a huge serpent thirty cubits
long, with a beard two cubits long, which made a long speech to
the unfortunate man who was wrecked on the island wherein it
lived.
In the pap3rri of the XVIIIth Dynasty we have representa-
tions of the weighing of the heart of the deceased in the Great
Balance, which takes place in the presence of the Great Company
of the gods, who act as judges, and who pass the sentence of doom,
that must be ratified by Osiris, according to the report of the god
Thoth, who acts as scribe and secretary to the gods. The Egyptian
hoped that his heart would exactly counterbalance the feather,
symbolic of Maat or the Law, and neither wished nor expected it
to outweigh it, for he detested performing works of supererogation.
The act of weighing was carefully watched by Anubis the god of
the dead, whose duty was to cast to the Eater of the Dead the
hearts which failed to balance the feather exactly ; and by the
guardian angel of the deceased, on behalf of the deceased ; and by
a dog-headed ape, who was seated on the top of the pillar, and who
supported himself upon the bracket on Avhich was balanced the
beam of the Great Scales. This ape was the associate and com-
panion of the god Thoth, and he was supposed to be skilled in the
art of computation, and in the science of numbers, and in the
measurement of time ; his duty at the weighing of the heart was
to scrutinize the pointer of the scales, and, having made sure that
the beam of the scales was exactly level, i.e., that the heart and
the feather exactly counterbalanced each other, to report the fact
to Thoth, so that he in turn might make his report to tlie gods on
THE DOG-HEADED APE 21
the case under consideration. The ape seated on the pillar of the
Scales belongs to a species which is now only found in the Sudan,
but which in late predynastic or in early dynastic times might
have been found all over Egypt. The dog-headed ape is very
clever, and even in modern times is regarded with much respect
by the natives, who believe that its intelligence is of the highest
order, and that its cunning is far superior to that of man ; the
high esteem in which it was held by the ancient Egyptians is
proved by the fact that the god Thoth was held to be incarnate in
him, and by the important functions which he performed in their
mythology.
It will also be remeriibered that in the vignette which
represents the sunrise in the Booh of the Dead a company of six
or seven dog-headed apes is depicted in the act of adoring the god
of day, as he rises on the eastern horizon of heaven ; they stand
on their hind legs and their forepaws are raised in adoration, and
they are supposed to be singing hymns to the Sun-god. In a
text which describes this scene these apes are said to be the spirits
of the dawn who sing hymns of praise to the Sun-god whilst he is
rising, and who transform themselves into apes as soon as he has
risen. It is a well known fact in natural history that the apes and
the monkeys in the forests of Africa and other countries chatter
noisily at dawn, and it is clear that it was the matutinal cries of
these animals which suggested their connection with the spirits of
the dawn. It is not stated in the text whether the spirits of the
dawn were created afresh each day or not, or whether the monkeys
transformed themselves into spirits daily, and so were able to
greet the rising sun each morning. We may, however, connect
the idea concerning them with that which is met with in an
ancient Hebrew description ^ of the angels of Hebrew mythology,
for one group of "angels of service" from the river of fire were
supposed to be created daily in order to sing one hymn to Grod
Almighty and then to come to an end.
Passing now to the consideration of the worship of animals by
the Egyptians of the predynastic and dynastic periods, we have
1 Compare Eisenmenger, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 371. 'i''^<"1a3 J>^!2VT >^DV b2
yh'^y\ n'vw noNi n^n injD D-)^r\ ^2i6n
22 FEAR THE MOTIVE OF WORSHIP
to endeavour to find the reasons which induced the early inhabi-
tants of the Nile Valley to pay adoration to birds, beasts, fishes,
and other creatures of the animal kingdom. A careful examina-
tion of the facts now available shows that in Egypt primitive man
must have worshipped animals in the first instance because they
possessed strength, and power, and cunning greater than his own,
or because they were endowed with some quality which enabled
them to do him bodily harm or to cause his death. The funda-
mental motive in man for worshipping animals was probably fear.
When man first took up his abode in Egypt the physical conditions
of the country must have resembled those of some parts of Central
Africa at the present time, and the whole country was probably
covered with forests and the ground obscured by dense under-
growth. In the forests great numbers of elephants and other
large beasts must have lived, and the undergrowth formed a home
for huge serpents of various species and for hosts of deadly reptiles of
difi'erent kinds, and the river was filled with great crocodiles similar
in length and bulk to those which have been seen in recent years
in the Blue Nile and in the rivers further to the south. We have
no means of knowing at what period the elephant was exterminated
in Egypt, but it was probably long before dynastic times, because
he finds no place in Egyptian mythology. The ivory objects
which have been found in predynastic graves prove that this
substance was prized by the primitive Egyptians, and that it was,
comparatively, largely used by them for making personal orna-
ments and other small objects, but whether they imported
elephants' tusks from the Sudan, or obtained them from animals
which they hunted and killed in some part of Egypt cannot be
said. On the top of one of the standards ^ Avhich are painted on
predynastic vases we find the figure of an elephant, a fact which
seems to show that this animal was the symbol of the family of the
man for whom was made the vase on which it is found, or of his
country, or of the tutelary deity, i.e., the god of his town or tribe.
On the other hand, it is cpite clear from several passages in the
texts with which the walls of the chambers and corridors of the
pyramid tombs of Unas and Teta, and other kings of the Early
1 See J. de Morgan, EtlmograpMe Prehistoriijne, p. 93.
ANTIQUITY OF SERPENT WORSHIP 23
Empire at Sakkara are inscribed that Egypt was infested with
venomous snakes and noxious reptiles of various kinds when the
original forms of those passages were written, and that they were
sufficiently formidable and numerous to cause the living grave
anxiety about the safety of the bodies of their dead. Thus in the
text of Unas,^ a king of the Vth Dynasty, we find a series of
short magical formulae, many of which are directed against
serpents and fierce animals, and all are couched in terms which
prove that they must have been composed long before they were
inscribed on the walls inside this king's pyramid, and M. Maspero
is undoubtedly correct in thinking that they must have presented
serious difficulties to the king's literaH. In these formulae
are mentioned the serpents Ufa, ^'^^^^(j'^, Nai, ^(|(]
Heka, ^ (] UH , Hekret, ^ "^^ %, im , Setcheh, [ ^ \
Akeneh, (j ^ |^, Amen, (] ", Hau, FD (] ^ lH, Antaf,
(] ^ ^ ^, Tcheser-tep, '^ [1 v^ @ Mil , Thethu, ^ ^UR ,
Hemth, fD ^ ^, Senenahemthet, | ^^"^ (] [Tl ^ ^ lH, and
allusion is made to a most " terrible serpent," 0 m^ aaa^
8 g — > n . At the time when these formulae were composed
each of these serpents was probably the type of a class of venomous
snakes, and their names no doubt described their physical charac-
teristics and their methods of attack. The abject fear of the
Egyptians for the serpent seems to have been constant in all
generations, and the texts of the latest as well as those of the earliest
period contain numerous prayers intended to deliver the deceased
from the " serpents which are in the Underworld, which live upon
" the bodies of men and women, and consume their blood." ^ Long
after Egypt was cleared of snakes and when the country was in
the condition in which Ave now know it, the tradition remained that a
1 Ed. Maspero, 1. 533 ff.
kv\ 1 ^ I ^ /wwv\ /^''^ A/vwvN Booh of the
Dead, Chapter^iB., 1. 4.
24 WORSHIP OF URAEUS AND VULTURE
mighty serpent, some thirty cubits, i.e., about fifty feet long, lived
on the top of Bakhau, fl "(^ '\\ ^-= % ^^ , the Mountain of
the Sunrise, and his name was Ami-Hemf, i.e., "Dweller in his
The worship of the serpent in Egypt is of great antiquity,
and shrines to certain members of the species must have existed
at a very early date. In predynastic times the uraeus was held in
great veneration, and the great centre of its worship was in the
Delta, at a place which the Egyptians in dynastic times called
" Per-Uatchet," and the Greeks " Buto." At the period when the
uraeus was being worshipped in Lower Egypt, the vulture was the
chief object of adoration in Upper Egypt, its principal sanctuary
being situated in the city which the Egyptians called " Nekhebet,"
and the Greeks " Eileithyiaspolis." The uraeus goddess was called
"Uatchet," or " Uatchit," and the vulture goddess "Nekhebet,"
or " Nekhebit," and the cities which A^^ere the centres of their
worship became so important, probably in consequence of this
worship, that in the early dynastic period we find it customary for
kings when they wished to proclaim their sovereignty over all
Egypt to give themselves the title j^£, which may be freely
rendered by " Lord of the shrines of the Vulture and Uraeus."
The equivalents of these signs are found on the now famous plaque
inscribed with the name and titles of Aha, a king who is often, but
without sufficient reason, assumed to be identical with Mena or
Menes, and thus it is clear that the cities of Nekhebet and Per-
Uatchet were important religious and administrative centres in
predynastic times.
Other wild animals which were worshipped by the Egyptians
about the same period were the lion, and the lynx, which they
called maftet ^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ hijopopotamus, and the quadruped
which became the symbol of the god Set ; among amphibious
creatures the crocodile and the turtle were the most important.
Among domestic animals the bull and the cow were the principal
objects of worship, and proof is forthcoming that they were
1 Hooli of the Dead, Chapter cviii., 1. 5.
WORSHIP OF THE BULL
25
regarded as deities in predynastic times. The great strength of
the bull, and his almost irresistible attack in fighting and headlong
rush, excited the fear and admiration of primitive man, and his
fecundating powers made him at a very early period the type of
the generative principle in nature. For thousands of years the
kings of Egypt delighted to call themselves " mighty bull," and
the importance which they attached to this title is evinced by the
fact that many of them inscribed it upon their serehh, or cog-
nizance, which displayed their name as the descendant of Horus ;
Usertsen II. receiving " life " from the god Sept. Behind him is his serehh
inscribed with his Horus name.
in fact, it formed their Horus name. The figure of a bull is
found sculptured upon some of the green slate objects which date
from the predynastic period, and which have been erroneously
called palettes, and a flint model of the head and horns of the cow,
which in later times became the animal symbolic of the goddess
Hathor, was found in a predynastic grave ; all these objects are
in the British Museum (Nos. 20,790, 20,792, and 32,124). The
warrior kings of the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties were pleased
when the court scribes related in commemorative inscriptions how
26
WORSHIP OF THE BULL
their lords raged and roared like lions as they mounted their
chariots and set out to crush the foolish enemy who had the
temerity to defy them, but they preferred
to be likened to the "mighty bull," who
trampled opposition beneath his hoofs, and
gored and destroyed with his horns that
which his hoofs had failed to annihilate.
Out of the reverence which was paid to the
bull in predynastic times grew the worship
of two special bulls, Hap and Mer-ur, which
names the Greeks modified into Apis and
1 1 ^ ■^-^ Mnevis, the sacred animals of the ancient
cities of Memphis and Heliopolis respectively.
The worship of Apis is at least as old as the
beginning of the dynastic period, and we
know that the cult of this bull continued in
Memphis until the close of the rule of the
Ptolemies. In some Avay the beliefs con-
cerning Apis were connected with those
which the Egyptians held concerning Osiris,
the god and judge of the dead, Avho is called
in the Booh of the Dead^ the "Bull of
Amentet," i.e., the "Bull of the Under-
world," LJ tfiTi ^ "^ "^ : and in the Ptolemaic
period the two gods were merged into
one and formed the god Sarapis, to
whom were ascribed the attributes of the
Egyptian and Greek gods of the Under-
world.
It now seems to be generally admitted
by ethnologists that there are three main
causes which have induced men to worship
animals, i.e., they have worshipped them
as animals, or as the dwelling-places of gods,
or as representatives of tribal ancestors.
Serekh of Rameses II., on
which is inscribed the Horns
name of this king, i.e., Ka-
NEKHT - MERI - MaaT. The
canopy of the serekh is in
the form of the sky F=^^,
and from the standard on
which it rests spring two
human arms and hands.
The right grasps a standard
surmounted by the head of
the king, whicTi liore repre
sents the ' ' royal ka '
:^j and
Li)
the left the symbol of Maat.
1 Chapter i., 1. 4.
APIS BULL AND RAM OF MENDES 27
There is no reason whatsoever for doubting that in neolithic times
the primitive Egyptians worshipped animals as animals and as
nothing more ; the belief that animals were the abodes of spirits or
deities grew up in their minds later, and it was this which induced
them to mummify the dead bodies of birds, and beasts, and lishes,
etc., in which they thought deities to have been incarnate. We
have no means of knowing exactly when this belief arose, but it
is certainly as old as the time when the Apis Bull began to be
worshipped, and when the Egyptians began to keep the ram and
other animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fishes in sanctuaries, and
to worship them as deities incarnate. In connection with it we
must notice that, in the case of the Apis Bull and the Ram of
Mendes, the god Apis did not take up his abode in every bull, and
that the soul of Osiris, which was supposed to dwell in the Ram of
Mendes, did not make his habitation in every ram. The Apis Bull,
like the Ram of Mendes, had to be sought for diligently, and no
bull or ram was made the object of veneration in the sanctuaries of
Memphis or Mendes unless he possessed the characteristic marks by
which the priests recognized him. The ordinary bulls and rams of
the species to which the Apis Bull and the Ram of Mendes belonged
were not regarded in the same light as the animals which by the
marks upon them proclaimed themselves to be the creatures to
which worship should be offered, and they were, of course, sacrificed
in the performance of funeral ceremonies and killed and eaten as
food by the people, even though somewhat of the deity may have
been incarnate in them. When the Apis Bull or the Ram of Mendes
died the deity who had been incarnate in it transferred himself to
another animal, and therefore did not leave the earth.
The question as to whether the Egyptians worshipped animals
as representations of tribal ancestors, or " totems," is one which has
given rise to much discussion, and this is not to be wondered at,
for the subject is one of difficulty. We know that many of the
standards which represent the nomes of Egypt are distinguished by
figures of birds and animals, e.g., the hawk, the bull, the hare, etc.,
but it is not clear whether these are intended to represent "totems"
or not. It is pretty certain that the nome-standard of dynastic
times was derived from the standards which the predynastic
28 NOME GODS
Egyptians set up in their boats, or caused to be carried in cere-
monial processions, or during the performance of public functions,
and there is no reason for doubting that, substantially, the same
ideas and beliefs underlie the use of both classes of standards. The
animal or bird standing on the top of a nome-perch or standard is
not intended for a fetish or a representation of a tribal ancestor,
but for a creature which was regarded as the deity under whose
protection the people of a certain tract of territory were placed, and
we may assume that within the limits of that territory it was un-
lawful to injure or kill such ahimal or bird. Thus in the Nome of
the Black Bull a black bull of a certain kind would be regarded as
a sacred animal, and it is certain that in predynastic times worship
would be offered to it as a god ; similarly in the Nome of the Hare
the hare would be worshipped ; and in the Nome of the Hawk the
hawk would be worshipped. Outside these nomes, however, the
bull and the hare and the hawk might be, and probably were,
killed and eaten for food, and from this point of view the sacred
creatures of the Egyptians may be thought to have something in
common with the totems, or deified representatives of tribal
ancestors, and with the fetishes of the tribes of nations which are
on the lowest levels of civilization. In connexion with this matter
it is customary to quote the statements of Greek and Roman
writers, many of whom scoff at the religion of the Egyptians
because it included the worship of animals, and charge the nation
with fatuity because the animals, etc., which were worshipped and
preserved Avith all care in some places were killed and eaten in
others. The evidence of such writers cannot be regarded as wholly
trustworthy, first, because they did not take the trouble to under-
stand the views which the Egyptians held about sacred animals,
and secondly, because they were not in a position to obtain trust-
worthy information. In the passage from one of Juvenal's Satires
already quoted, he declares that the Egyptians ate human flesh,
and it is possible that he believed what he wrote ; still the fact
remains that there is not a particle of evidence in the Egyptian
inscriptions to show that they ever did so, and we have every
reason for believing that they were not cannibals.
His other statements about the religion of the Egyptians are,
ANIMAL WORSHIP NOT TOTEMISM 29
probably, as untrustworthy. Tliere is not enough ancient Egyptian
religious literature extant to enable us to trace the history of
religion in all periods of dynastic history, still less are we able to
follow it back in the predynastic period, because of that time we
have no literature at all; such monuments and texts as we have,
however, serve to show that the Egyptians first worshipped animals
as animals, and nothing more, and later as the habitations of divine
spirits or gods, but there is no reason for thinking that the animal
worship of the Egyptians was descended from a system of totems
or fetishes, as Mr. J. F. M'Lennan believed.^ It has been assumed
by some ethnologists that many primitive peoples have been accus-
tomed to name individuals after animals, and that such animal
names have in certain cases become tribe names. These may have
become family surnames, and at length the myths may have gro^vn up
about them in which it is declared that the families concerned were
actually descended " from the animals in question as ancestors,
" whence might arise many other legends of strange adventures
" and heroic deeds of ancestors, to be attributed to the quasi-human
" animals whose names they bore ; at the same time, popular
" mystification between the great ancestor and the creature whose
" name he held and handed down to his race, might lead to veneration
" for the creature itself, and thence to full animal- worship." ^ This
theory may explain certain facts connected with the animal- worship
of numbers of savage or half-savage tribes in some parts of the
world, but it cannot, in the writer's opinion, be regarded as
affording an explanation of the animal-worship of the Egyptians.
In dynastic times kings were, it is true, worshipped as gods, and
divine honours were paid to their statues, but the reason for this
was that the king was believed to be of the seed of the god Horus,
the oldest of all the gods of Egypt. There is reason for believing
that to certain men who were famous for their knowledo-e or for
o
some great works which they had accomplished divine honours
were paid, but neither these nor the kings were held to be
gods who were worshipped throughout the land as were the well-
known or natural gods of the country. In short, the Avorship which
1 See the Fortnightly Beview, 1869-1870.
2 See Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., p. 236.
30 NOME STANDARDS
was paid to kings after their death, or to ordinary men, who were
sometimes deified, was quite different from that paid to the gods of
the country, whether they were in animal or human form or whether
they represented the spirits which concerned themselves with the
welfare of men or those which occupied themselves with the direc-
tion of the operations of Nature.
We see, moreover, from the nome-standards that several objects
besides animals were worshipped and regarded as gods, or that they,
at all events, became the symbols of the deities which were wor-
shipped in them. In predynastic times we know that some standards
were surmounted by representations of two, three, four, or five
hills ^ C:^, rv-^'^-^, D£^}i^, rv/^-^-N-^^^ another by two arrows (?) ^ ^,
another by a fish, <^<, another by two arrows and a shield, y^ ,
etc. With the predynastic '^y^ is probably to be compared the
dynastic sign ^^, and with the predynastic ^^ the dynastic
sio-n *Qr. It is not easy at present to find a dynastic equivalent
for the two arrows (?) ^r ^, or to find the reason why the three
hills f^^^ were connected Avith a god, but we shall probably be
correct if we connect the two arrows (?) with some aboriginal god
of war, and the three hills with the abode of some, at present,
unknown god. The shield and the crossed arrows can, we think,
be explained with more certainty. We know from the Nome-
Lists that the fifth nome of Lower Egypt, ^ , which was called
Sapi by the Egyptians and Saites by the Greeks, had for its
capital the city Saut or Sais, and that the great deity of this city
was the goddess Nit or Neith. The dynastic pictures of this
goddess represent her in the form of a goddess who holds in her
hands two arrows and a bow ; she sometimes wears upon her head
the crown of the north ^, or >^^, which is the sign for her name,
or two crossed arrows N<f ; in fact, such pictures prove beyond a
doubt that Nit, the goddess of Sais, was the goddess of the chase
par excellence. That this goddess was worshipped in the earliest
dynastic period is certain, for we find that her name forms part of
1 See my " History of Egypt " {Egypt in the Predynastic and Archaic Periods),
vol. i., p. 78.
THE GODDESS NIT 31
the name of Nit-hetep, who seems to have been the daughter of
king Sma, and who was probably the wife of Aha, and also part
of that of the early dynastic king Mer-Nit. That the dynastic sign
^^ is the equivalent of the predynastic sign ^^ there is no reason
to doubt, and, as the former is known to represent the crossed
arrows and shield of the hunting goddess of Sais, we are justified
in believing that its predynastic equivalent was intended to be a
picture of the same objects, and to be symbolic of the same
goddess.
We have already mentioned the predynastic standard sur-
mounted by the figure of an elephant, which was, undoubtedly,
intended to represent a god, and thus it is clear that both in pre-
dynastic and dynastic times the Egyptians symbolized gods both
by means of animals and by objects connected with their worship
or with their supposed occupations. In dynastic Nome-Lists we
have for the name of Matenu a knife C^, for the nome of Ten a
pair of horns surmounted by a plumed disk /^i , for the nome
of Uas, or Us, a sceptre r , for the nome of Sesheshet a sistrum 1 ,
etc. The first, third, and fourth of this group of examples are
clearly objects which were connected with the worship of the gods
whom they symbolize, and the second is probably intended to be
the headdress of the god of the nome which it symbolizes. At this
period of the world's history it is impossible to fathom the reasons
which led men to select such objects as the symbols of their gods,
and we can only accept the view that they were the product of
some indigenous, dominant people who succeeded in establishing
their religious customs so strongly in Egypt that they survived
all political commotions, and changes, and foreign invasions,
and flourished in the country until the third century of our
era at least.
The cult of Nit, or Neith, must have been very general in
Egypt, although in dynastic times the chief seat thereof was at Sais
in the Delta, and we know that devotees of the goddess lived as far
south as Nakada, a few miles to the north of Thebes, for several
objects inscribed with the name of queen Nit-hetep have been found
32 THE GODDESS NIT
in a grave at that place. Of the early worship of the goddess
nothing is known, but it is most probable that she was adored as
a great hunting spirit as were adored spirits of like character by-
primitive peoples in other parts of the world. The crossed arrows
and shield indicate that she was a hunting spirit in the earliest
times, but a picture of the dynastic period represents her with two
crocodiles^ sucking one at each breast, and thus she appears in
later times to have had ascribed to her power over the river.
It has already been said that the primitive Egyptians, though
believing that their gods possessed powers superior to their own,
regarded them as beings who were liable to grow old and die, and
who were moved to love and to hate, and to take pleasure in meat
and drink like man ; they were even supposed to intermarry with
human beings and to have the power of begetting offspring like the
*' sons of God," as recorded in the Book of Genesis (vi. 2, 4). These
ideas were common in all periods of Egyptian history, and it is
clear that the Egyptians never wholly freed themselves from them ;
there is, in fact, abundant proof that even in the times wdien
monotheism had developed in a remarkable degree they clung to
them with a tenacity which is surprising. The religious texts
contain numerous references to them, and beliefs which were
conceived by the Egyptians in their lowest states of civilization are
mingled with those which reveal the existence of high spiritual
conceptions. The great storehouse of religious thought is the Booh
of the Dead, and in one of the earliest Recensions of that remark-
able work we may examine its various layers with good result. In
these are jDi'^served many passages which throw light upon the
views which were held concerning the gods, and the powers which
they possessed, and the place where they dwelt in company Avith
the beatified dead.
One of the most instructive of these passages for our purpose
forms one of the texts which are inscribed on the walls and
corridors of the chambers in the pyramid tombs of Unas, a king
of the Vth Dynasty, and of Teta, a king of the Vlth Dynasty.
1 In the text of Unas (1. G27) the crocodile-god Sebek is cahed the son of Neith
nj„ ^. — >v'
KING UNAS AS A GOD 33
The paragraphs in general of the great Heliopolitan Recension
deal, as we should expect, with the offerings which were to be
made at stated intervals in the little chapels attached to the
pyramids, and many were devoted to the object of removing
enemies of every kind from the paths of the king in the Under-
world ; others contain hymns, and short prayers for his welfare,
and magical formulae, and incantations. A few describe the great
power which the beatified king enjoys in the world beyond the
grave, and, of course, declare that the king is as great a lord in
heaven as he was upon earth. The passage in question from the
pyramid of Unas is of such interest and importance that it ^ is
given in the Appendix to this Chapter, with interlinear translation
and transliteration, and with the variant readings from the pyramid
of Teta, but the following general rendering of its contents may be
useful. " The sky poureth down rain, the stars tremble, the bow-
" bearers run about with hasty steps, the bones of Aker tremble,
" and those who are ministrants unto them betake themselves to
" flight when they see Unas rising [in the heavens] like a god who
" liveth upon his fathers and feedeth upon his mothers. Unas is
" the lord of wisdom whose name his mother knoweth not. The
" noble estate of Unas is in heaven, and his strength in the horizon
" is like unto that of the god Tem his father, indeed, he is stronger
" than his father who gave him birth. The doubles (kau) of Unas
" are behind him, and those whom he hath conquered are beneath
" his feet. His gods are upon him, his uraei are upon his brow,
" his serpent-guide is before him, and his soul looketh upon the
" spirit of flame ; the powers of Unas protect him." From this
paragraph we see that Unas is declared to be the son of Tem, and
has made himself stronger than his father, and that when the king,
who lives upon his fathers and mothers, enters the sky as a god,
all creation is smitten Avith terror. The sky dissolves in rain, the
stars shake in their places, and even the bones of the great double
lion-headed earth-god Aker, 2^::^, quake, and all the lesser powers
of heaven flee in fear. He is considered to have been a mighty
conqueror upon earth, for those whom he has vanquished are
1 The hieroglypliic texts are given by Maspero, Les Inscriptions des Pyramides
de Saqqarah, Paris, 1894, p. 67, 1. 496, and p. 134, 1. 319.
D
34 KING UNAS AS A GOD
beneath his feet ; there is no reason why this statement should not
be taken literally, and not as referring to the mere pictures of
enemies which were sometimes painted on the cartonnage coverings
of mummies under the feet, and upon the sandals of mummies, and
upon the outside of the feet of coffins. An ordinary man possessed
one ha or " double," but a king or a god was believed to possess
many Icau or " doubles." Thus in one text ^ the god Ra is said to
possess seven souls {hau) and fourteen doubles (Icau), and prayers
were addressed to each soul and double of Ra as well as to the god
himself; elsewhere^ we are told that the fourteen Jcau of Ra,
1^ "^ Awwv \ j AAAA/vv O j] Avcrc oriveu to him by Thoth. Unas
appears in heaven with his " gods" upon him, the serpents are on
his brow, he is led by a serpent-guide, and is endowed with his
powers. It is difficult to say what the " gods " here referred to
really are, for it is unlikely that the allusion is to the small figures
of gods which, in later times, were laid upon the bodies of the
dead, and it seems that we are to understand that he, Unas, was
accompanied by a number of divine beings Avho had laid their
protecting strength upon him. The uraei on his brow and his
serpent-guide were the emblems of similar beings whose help he
had bespoken — in other words, they represented spirits of serpents
which were made friendly towards man.
The passage in the text of Unas continues, " Unas is the Bull
^' of heaven which overcometh by his will, and which feedeth upon
^' that which cometh into being from every god, and he eateth
" of the provender of those who fill themselves with words of
" power and come from the Lake of Flame. Unas is provided
" with power sufficient to resist his spirits (hJm), and he riseth [in
" heaven] like a mighty god who is the lord of the seat of the
*'hand (i.e., power) [of the gods]. He taketh his seat and his
*' back is towards Seb. Unas weigheth his speech with the god
" whose name is hidden on the day of slaughtering the oldest
" [gods]. Unas is the master of the offering and he tieth the
"knot, and provideth meals for himself; he eateth men and he
1 Diimiclien, Tempelinscliriften, vol. i., pi. 29.
" Lepsius, Denhmdler, iii., Bl. 194.
KING UNAS AS A GOD 35
" livetli upon gods, he is the lord of offerings, and he keepeth
" count of the lists of the same." The dead king is next likened
to a young and vigorous bull which feeds upon what is produced
by every god and upon those that come from the Fiery Lake to
eat words of jDower. Here we have a survival of the old worship
of the bull, which began in the earliest times in Egypt, and lasted
until the Roman period. His food is that which is produced by
every god, and when we remember that the Egyptians believed
that every object, animate and inanimate, was the habitation of a
spirit or god, it is easy to see that the allusion in these words is to
the green herbage which the bull ordinarily eats, for from this
point of view, every blade of grass was the abode of a god.
In connexion with this may be quoted the words of Sankhon-
yathan, the Sanchoniatho of the Greeks, as given by Eusebius, who
says, " But these first men consecrated the productions of the
" earth, and judged them gods, and worshipped those things, upon
" which they themselves lived, and all their posterity, and all
" before them ; to these they made libations and sacrifices." ^
Now the food of this bull Unas is also said to be those who
came from the Lake of Fire, or the city of She-Sasa, and who are
these ? From Chapter cviii. of the Book of the Dead we learn that
She-Sasa Avas situated in Sekhet-Sasa,^ i.e., a district in heaven,
and it is clear from the text of the Chapter that it was one of the
abodes wherein the beatified dead obtained food. The deceased is
made to say, " I have not lain down in death ; I have stood over
" thee,^ and I have risen like a god. I have cackled like a goose,
" and I have alighted like the hawk by the divine clouds and by
" the great dew .... I have come from She-Sasa, which is in
" Sekhet-Sasa, i.e., the Lake of Fire, Avhich is in the Field of
" Fire " Towards the end of the Chapter (line 10) mention is
made of herbage or crops \\\ \^ "^ "^ J , and it seems as if these
1 Eusebius, Praejp. Evan., lib. i , c. 10 (in Cory, Ancient Fragments, London,
1832, p. 5;.
^ LL\ ^ yUuh® . See my Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, Text,
p. 203.
3 He speaks to the Thigh, ^^,in heaven.
36 KING UNAS AS A GOD
grew in the Field of Fire, or in the neighbourhood of it,
and it is clear that it must be these which are referred to
as the provender of those who come from the Lake of Fire.
We are next told that Unas hath power sufficient to oppose
or resist his spirits (kJiu), but it is not certain whether these are
beings in the Underworld which are hostile to him, or spirits
which belong to himself; in any case the meaning of the passage
is not clear. Having risen in heaven Unas takes his seat with his
back towards Seb, the great earth-god who was represented by the
mythological goose which was supposed to have laid the great
cosmic egg. In the latter part of the section of the text of Unas
quoted above we have some remarkable ideas enunciated. It is
asserted first of all that he " weigheth his speech Avith the god
whose name is hidden," which indicates that Unas was supposed
to be of equal rank and power with the god of judgment. From
the Theban Recensions of the Book of the Bead ^ we know that the
expression " weighing of words," ^ ^^ : pP 11 , means also
the " weighing of actions," and that it is applied to the examina-
tion of the deceased which is held on the day wherein his heart is
weighed in the Great Scales. The examination was conducted by
Thoth on behalf of Osiris, but the words in the text of Unas show
that the dead king considers himself able to judge his own actions,
and to award himself happiness. The god of the hidden name is
probably Osiris. Finally it is said that Unas eats men and feeds
upon the gods. We have already referred to the passage in
Juvenal's Fifteenth Satire in which he declares that the Egyptians
ate human flesh, and it has been already said that the dynastic
inscriptions aiford no proof whatsoever that the Egyptians were
cannibals.
The statement here that Unas ate men is definite enough, and
it is not easy to give any other than a literal meaning to the words ;
we can only assume then that this portion of the text has reference
to some acts of cannibalism of which a tradition had come down
from predynastic to dynastic times. We gather from other
passages in the texts of Unas and Teta what manner of treatment
' See my Chaj)ters of Coming Forth hi/ Day, Text, p. 18, 1. 12 ; p. 19, 1. 5; etc.
KING UNAS AS A GOD 37
was meted out to the vanquished in battle by the victors, and it
seems to tind a parallel in the atrocious acts which were, and in
some places still are, perpetrated by conquering tribes of Central
Africa after a battle. In predynastic times all the property of
those who Avere defeated in war was seized upon by the successful
warriors, and all the women fell into their hands, and at times
nameless abominations were committed upon the unfortunate male
captives. The dead king in the texts of Unas and Teta is,
naturally, described as the lord of heaven and of all the beings and
things which are therein ; as such he is master of all the women,
and it is said plainly of him that he is the " fecundator, and that
" he carries off the women from their husbands to whatsoever place
*' he pleaseth whensoever he pleaseth." ^ Thus one of his attributes
was that of the bull, which, because of his fecundity and strength,
became the object of worship by the early Egyptians, and he
exercised the rights of a victorious tribal chief. Upon the con-
quered men who were allowed to live terrible indignities were
perpetrated, and in the text of Teta the dead king is exhorted to
rise up, " for Horus hath caused Thoth to bring unto thee thine
" enemy, and he (i.e., Horus) hath put thee behind him in order
" that he may not do thee an injury, and that thou mayest make
" thy place upon him, so that when [thou] goest forth thou mayest
"take thy place upon him, and he may not have union with
" thee." ^ It is possible then that in predynastic times in addition
to the wanton destruction which the Egyptians brought about after
a victorious fight with their enemies, and the slaughter, and rapine,
and nameless abominations which followed, they sometimes imitated
the example of wild and savage beasts and ate the foes they had
A/^AAA^
1
^ =^ (±1P] k i^^ Z (Si] D^l ^ ^^
line 629.
38 UNAS EATS THE GODS,
conquered. The accounts of the battles of dynastic times show
that the Egyptians looted and destroyed the cities and to^vns of the
vanquished, and that they cut down orchards and gardens, and
carried off all the flocks and herds which they could find ; and
there is abundant proof that they mutilated the bodies of their
dead foes after a fight, but that they either ate them or behaved
towards them in a manner contrary to nature there is absolutely no
evidence to show.
We have now to consider the remaining paragraphs of the
extract from the text of Unas. The gods upon whose bodies Unas
fed were snared by Am-kehuu, and they were examined as to their
fitness and condition by Tcheser-tep-f, a divine being who was in
later times one of the Forty-Two Judges in the Hall of Maati, and
is mentioned in the " Negative Confession " of the Booh of the
Dead. The gods were next bound by Her-thertu, and the god
Khensu cut their throats and took out their intestines ; a being
called Shesemu acted as butcher and cut them up and cooked the
pieces thereof in his fiery cauldrons. Thereupon Unas ate them,
and in eating them he also ate their words of power and their
spirits. The largest and finest of the gods he ate at daybreak, and
the smaller sized ones for meals at sunset, and the smallest for his
meals in the night ; the old and worn-out gods he rejected entirely
and used them up as fuel in his furnace. The cauldrons in which
the bodies of the gods were cooked were heated by the " Great One
in heaven," who shot flame under those which contained the thighs
of the oldest of the gods ; and the " Perer, who is in heaven," of
Unas cast also into cauldrons the thighs of their women. Unas is
then said to make a journey about every part of the double sky, or
double heaven, f=^ , i.e., the night sky and the day sky, and also
to travel about, presumably from one end to the other, through the
two at elm, (1 ei^ii j ^ "^ ' , of Egypt, i.e., the land which lies
between the mountains and the Nile on each side of the river. As
a result of eating of the bodies of the gods Unas becomes the Great
Sekhem, the Sekhem of the Sekhemu ; he also becomes the Ashem
of Ashem, the Great Ashem of the Ashemu. The power which
protects Unas and which he possesses is greater than that of all the
ABSORBS THEIR POWERS 39
sdfm in the heavens, and he becomes the eldest of all the firstborn
gods and he goes before thousands and makes offerings to hundreds
[of them] ; indeed, the power which has been given to him as the
Great Sekhem makes him to become as the star Sahu, i.e., Orion,
with the gods. " Unas can repeat his rising in the sky, for he is
'' the Seben crown as lord of the heavens. He taketh count of the
" knots (or, sinews) and of livers, and he hath taken possession of
" the hearts of the gods. He hath eaten the Red Crown, he hath
" eaten the White Crown, and he feedeth upon fat entrails ; the
" offerino-s made to him are those in whose hearts live words of
" power. What the Red Crown emitteth that he hath eaten, and
" he flourisheth ; the words of poAver are in his belly, and his sdfm
" is not turned away from him. He hath eaten the knowledge of
" every god, and his existence and the duration of his life are
" eternal and everlasting in any sdhii which he is pleased to
" make. Whatsoever he hateth he shall never do within the limits,
"or, inside the borders of heaven. Behold their soul, i.e., the
" soul of the gods, is in Unas, and their spirits are with him ;
" his food is more abundant than that of the gods, in whose bones
" is the flame of Unas. Behold their soul is with Unas, and their
" Shadows are with their Forms, or Attributes. Unas is in, or
'' with, the doubly hidden Kha gods (?) [as] a Sekhem, and having
" performed [all] the ordinances of the (ceremony of) ploughing
" the seat of the heart of Unas shall be among the living upon this
" earth for ever and ever."
The last portion of the extract is of peculiar interest because
it affords some insight into the beliefs which the Egyptians held
about the constituent parts of the economy of the gods. We have
already seen that a />a, or soul, has been assigned to Unas, and hau,
or " doubles," and hliu, or spirits, and a sdhii, and a sekhem ; the
last two words are difficult to translate, but they are rendered
with approximate correctness by "spiritual body," and "power."
The soul was intimately connected with the heart, and was
supposed to be gratified by offerings, which it was able to consume ;
the " double " was an integral part of a man, and was connected
with his shadow, and came into being when he was born, and lived
in the tomb with the body after death ; the spirit was the seat of
40 UNAS, THE ASHEM OF THE ASHEMU
the spiritual part of man, and gods and divine personages were
credited with the possession of several spirits ; the .syTA^/, or
spiritual body, was the ethereal, intangible, transparent and trans-
lucent body, which was supposed, in dynastic times at all events,
to grow from the dead body, the form of which it preserved ; the
seJihem was the "power" which seems to have animated the s^hu
and to have made it irresistible. From the extract given above
from the text of Unas we learn that the gods were composed of all
these various parts, and that in fact their economy resembled that
of man ; in other words, the Egyptians made their gods in their
own image, only they attributed to them superhuman powers.
The gods, however, preserved their existence by means of a
magical protection which they enjoyed, mehet, %\^ ^ , and also
by hrl-au, $ *j y °? which is commonly translated "words of
power " ; the aim of every Egyptian was to obtain possession of
both the magical protection and the words of power, for they
thought that if they once were masters of these they would be able
to live like the gods. In the earliest times in Egypt men thought
that the only way to obtain the strength and immortality of the
gods was to eat the gods themselves, and so we read that Unas,
having eaten parts of the boiled bodies of the gods, " hath eaten
" their words of power (heJca), and swallowed their spirits {IcJm)."
As a result of this he becomes the " Great Power," the " Power of
Powers," i.e., the greatest Power in heaven. He becomes also the
Ashem of Ashem, the great Ashem of the Ashemu, that is to say,
the very essence of Ashem, and the greatest powers of the Ashemu
beings are enshrined within him because he has within him the
spirits and the words of power of the gods.
But what is the meaning of Ashem ? In the text of Teta the
word has for its determinative a hawk perched upon a standard,
_^, which shows that it has some meaning connected with deity or
divinity, but it cannot be the name of one divine being only, for
we find it in the plural form Ashemu, ^^ ^ ^ ^^^. The
determinative, however, does not help us very much, for it proves
little more than that some attribute of the Hawk-god Ileru was
ascribed to the Ashemu ; the hawk was undoubtedly the first
UNAS, THE ASHEM OF THE ASHEMU 41
creature worshipped by the predynastic Egyptians, and ^ became
in consequence the common determinative of all words implying the
idea of deity or divinity, and of the proper names of the gods in a
very large number of passages in the hieroglyphic texts inscribed
on the walls of the chambers and corridors in the pyramids at
Sakkara. The common name for "god," as we have already seen,
is "neter," j, or | Jj, with the plural "neteru," | | |, or | i, or
in ^ '' ^^' A-^ A-? ^^* ^^® fi^^ *^^* ^^^6 ^^1^ gods are some-
times called "hawks," J ^ ^^y^^V^^V, even when the female
gods are called " netert," | ^^==^ Pn PnPri-^ ^^ the Booh of the
Dead^ the word Ashemu is written ^^ ¥\ ^^\^ ' wf '? which may
be translated by " divine Ashemu," and as the first determinative is
a squatting hawk, we may assume that the word ashemu means
" hawks." ^ If this assum^Dtion be correct, "Ashem of Ashem,
Great Ashem of the Ashemu," means " Hawk of Hawk, the Great
Hawk of the Hawks," and since the hawk was not only a god to
the predynastic Egyptians, but their oldest and greatest god, being
in fact the spirit of that which is above, i.e., heaven, the passage
" Ashem of Ashem, Great Ashem of the Ashemu,"' may very well
be rendered " god of god, great god of the gods." Thus with the
words of power and the spirits of the gods in him Unas becomes
the habitation of the power of God, and the firstborn of the gods.
He is now able to go round about heaven at pleasure, and as the
Great Sekhem, or Power, his visible emblem is Sail or Orion, and
he is able to repeat his rising [daily] in heaven like this constella-
tion. It is not improbable that the identification of Orion with
kings who had eaten the gods filtered doAvn in tradition to the
Semitic people who lived in the Delta in dynastic times, and so
became the base of the legends about Orion which are found among
the Arabs and Hebrews.
1 See the text of Unas, line 209 ; in the text of Teta, line 197, the gods are
described as " male and female," 0 | I | ^\ f°F=^) V\
/WW^A I I I _h!F^ f'^'^Tj) _B^ '=^ -^ ^
2 See my Chapters of Coming Forth by Bay, Text, p. 128, 1. 14,
2 A variant form of the word is akhem % SN^ ' ^^^ Brugsch (Worterbuch,
Suppl., p. 279) renders it by "the symbol, or visible form of a god."
42 POWER OVER THE HEART
Modern travellers have put on record the fact that certain
savage and semi-savage peoples were, even in recent times, in the
habit of eating pieces of flesh of mighty wild animals or of strong
men, and of drinking their blood with the view of absorbing their
nature, and life, and strength into their own bodies.^ This idea
also existed among the Egyptians, both predynastic and dynastic,
and we find an allusion to it in the extract from Unas under
consideration, for he is said to take possession of the hearts of the
gods, and to reckon up the thesu and heqesu, and to feed upon
fat S7nau. The importance which the Egyptians attached to the
possession of the physical heart, or of having power over it, is
proved by many texts, and especially by several Chapters of the
Boole of the Dead, wherein we find many prayers which were
specially written for the protection of the heart. Thus in
Chapter xxvi. the deceased prays, "may my heart be to me in
"the house of hearts, may my hdti^ be to me in the house of
" hdtu " ; Chapters xxvii., xxviii., and xxix. were written to
prevent the heart being carried away by those who steal hearts
and destroy them, ^5t^^ 11 i ? i !!^ ^^\ iV^i' Chapter xxix. a
was composed to prevent its death in the Underworld ; and
Chapters xxx.a and xxx.b were intended to prevent a man's
heart from being driven away from him there, especially at the
time of the Judgment, when it was weighed in the Great Scales.
For the words thesu, heqesu, and smau it is not easy to find
equivalents. From the connexion in which it occurs thesu must
mean either the vertebra or some internal organ of the body
which resembles a tied or knotted cord, whilst of heqesu the
determinative proves that it also is an internal organ. In
Chapter xxx.a the deceased says, " Homage to thee, 0 my
" heart {ah) ! Homage to thee, 0 my hdti (pericardium ?) !
" Homage to thee, 0 my heseh," which is probably a variant
form of heqes, but curiously enough the determinative of hese/c,
S fl ^^ J is a heart. In spite of this, however, it seems as if the
1 See Robertson Smith, The Beliglon of the Semites, p. 295.
2 c=^ 1^ ^ the pericardium (?). In the ancient texts the hat, or hdti of a god
'^^ W
was the seat of the words of power by means of which he maintained his life.
THE HEART AND WORDS OF POWER 43
word actually means " liver." Mr. Frazer has quoted in his
work^ instances which prove that savage tribes look upon the
liver as the seat of the soul or life of man, and that portions of
it are eaten by them with the view of acquiring the qualities of
the former possessor of the liver. The words of the text of Unas
do not say definitely that the king ate the thesu and livers of the
gods who had been killed for him, but it is evident from the
context that they were supposed to form part of his food. On the
other hand, it is said definitely that he did eat their smau saau, or
" fat entrails," J f J P ^ \ ^ ^ . and their hearts, -f ^ ,
or those portions of them which were the seats of the hekau,
ft Li ^ , or words of magical power, which were the source of their
life.
Now besides the spirits, and the words of power, and the
internal organs of the gods, Unas, it is said, hath eaten the
"knowledge," I (I ^^m '^^ sda, of every god, and the period of his
life and his existence are merged into eternity and everlastingness,
which he may pass in any way that pleaseth his spiritual body
(sdh), and during this existence he has no need whatsoever to do
anything which is distasteful to him. Moreover, the soul[s] and
spirits of the gods are in and with Unas, and their souls, and their
shadows, and their divine forms are with him. Thus we see that
Unas has absorbed within his spiritual body all the life and power
of the gods, and his portion is everlasting life, and he can do
anything and everything he pleases. Here we should naturally
expect the section to come to an end, but the last sentence goes on
to say that Unas is with the double Kha god, who is invisible, or
unknown, and that being a Power (sehhem) who hath performed
[the ceremony] of ploughing, "the seat of the heart" of Unas shall
" be among those who live upon this earth for ever and for ever."
In this sentence we have an illustration of the difficulty of under-
standing and explaining the Egyptian religion and the doctrine
of the gods. In the early portion of the passage from the text of
1 The Golden Bough, vol. ii., p. 357 (2nd edition).
2 The word here used is db v/.
44 THE DOUBLE LIFE OF UNAS
Unas already translated and analyzed we are told how the dead
king became the god of god, immortal and invisible, with supreme
power in heaven, etc., but at the end of it we read that the seat of
the heart of Unas shall be among those who live upon this earth
for ever and ever, i.e., Unas shall enjoy after death a continuation
of the life which he began in this world ; in fact, shall have a
double existence, the one heavenly and the other earthly.
( 45 )
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
UNAS, THE SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
496. ^
kep
D ^
■pet
m
dhi
sebii
J\
nem
Poureth down water heaven, tremble the stars,
go about
petchet seta
the bow-bearers, quake
I
/I\
kenemu
498. ^|i^^^
qes Aker ker - er - sen
the bones of Aker, those beneath
them
AA/WNA I r\r\r\r\r\f\
499. ("^[)p]
take to flight [when] they see Unas rising [as] a soul
1 f k ill-' \-^l
em neter dnJch em ^i ~ f usTieh
like a god [who] liveth upon his fathers [and] feedeth
500.
em
mut - f Unas pa neb
sabut
upon his mothers. Unas this [is] the lord of wisdom,
1 The text here given is from the Pyramid of Unas (Maspero, Becueil, torn, iv.,
p. 59) ; the variants are from the Pyramid of Teta {Becueil, torn, v., p. 48, 1. 319).
_s^
% c^ c^ c:^
l\
46
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
501.
IcheifYi en
knoweth not
milt - f ren - f
his mother his name.
ciiL sliepsu
Is the noble rank
feU'l
D ^
^^1
502.
■^^?c^
Unas em pet du nser-f em Jchut md Tern
of Unas in heaven, is his strength in the horizon like Tern,
c^ 3
useru eref
su
dt-f au mes - ne^
his father ; he (i.e., Tem) begot him [and] he became stronger
than he.
U ' 503. gj|] "f
die Icau Unds ha -f du hemu set-fi?)
Are the doubles of Unas behind him, the conquered [are]
I I I
kher retui-f du neteru-f tep-f du dart - t
beneath his two feet. His gods are on him. His uraei are
em d])t - f du semtu Unds em hdt-f
on his brow. The serpent guide of Unas is before him.
3 Ci
(m
* u u u
' <
l^l^k^^-TTT(^]<
Zii
'U
:\-
SLAYEK AND EATER OF THE GODS
47
D ^
[J %^!'T JM«M^ 111(111]
petret ha hliut ent hes du useru Unas
Seeth soul [his] the spirit of fiame. The powers of Unas
<^
her meJcet -f
protect him.
db-f
U
ka
D ^
ra
fe ^ 111 °()
Unds pd ha pet en het
Unas this [is] the bull of heaven that thrusteth
em
r
anJih
em
Jcheper
506. A^A/w\ j
en neter
with his will, living upon what coraeth into being of god
" A
dm
neb dm em
QYQTj, and eating of
,^emu - sen
their food
iu meh
who come to fill
khat-sen em hehau em She en Sdsd
their belly with words of power from the lake of Flame.
Unds pd apei'-d er dab Jehu - f
Unas this [is] provided with power against his spirits.
^\(±m
Q
D
du Unds hhd em
neb dmit dst-d
ur pu
Unas riseth like a mighty one, the lord in the seat of the
hand [of the gods].
J\
f
A
u
ft3
48
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
^p^^ [^^_ J^ ^J 508. (S||] d(|
hems -f sa -f dr Seh Unas pd
He is seated [with] his back to Seb. Unas this
*■ 1^ I
AAAAAA AAAAAA
0.3
I
utclid mct-f liend
weigheth his word with
relches
1^ t
csu
D
Amen ren - f hru pu
Hidden of Name on day this
en reiiiies semsu JJnds 1^['?0 ''^^^
of slaughtering the eldest [gods] Unas this [is] the lord
^ D
hetep tes
of the offering, tying
dqa
the knot,
^
an
dut - f
making his meals
tchesef Unas pd dm:
for himself. Unas this eateth
111
em neteru
net
m
annu
remth dnkh
men [and] liveth
a
V
Jihd
apt
on the gods, the lord of the offerings, who examineth the lists of
offerings.
ra
o
dV^
D
A ^o^o 1
I '-^ I H L
D
0 0 0 1
V
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
49
5 i\
1 \/ ''^SX.'ASN.
an dJchem apt Am-hehuu sepeh - sen
Beliold, he who maketh to bow Am-kehuu hath snared
foreheads, them
i^n] 510. 1 y)%:^ ^'
V Av^wtA 1 J\ AAA/V\A I \ *t«=fc —
Unas an Tcheser-tep-f
en Unas an Tcfieser-tep-j saa-nef-sen
for Unas. Behold, Tcheser-tep-f hath known them
I T ^.e* — I f^Ar\/v^ <^ > "^ > —21 _LE^ *t^ — I
khesef - nef sen an Her - thertu gas - nef sen
[and] he hath driven Behold, Her-thertu hath bound them,
them [to him].
metes
A/VVW\ AAAA/V\
tchat - / sell
Behold, Khensu the slaughterer of lords hath cut the throats of
them
an Khensu
nehu
en Unas she t -nef dmt hhat - sen
for Unas, [and] he hath torn out what is in their belly.
apt pu habu - / ei' khesef
[for] he is the messenger [whom] he sent to drive [them].
'1
%=^
®
-n " V VV
; ^ 1 ^ I ^ 1
. TMs creature is mentioned in the Negative Confessioa ; see
my Chapters of Coming Forth hy Day, Text, p. 259, 1. 41
1 veJ
AAAAAA
D ^ 1J
E
7 a.
8
i?^-^ wanting.
50
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
Y — Y 1
£L
K^p
AV\AAA A^^VV\A
r^»
m
an Sliesemu rehhes - f sen en Unas feses - nef
Behold, Shesemu hath cut them up for Unas, he hath boiled
dlchet dm - sen
'(j^OO
o
em Jcetdt - /
pieces of them in his cauldrons
meshert Unas
blazing. Unas
°1 +^ I^P
P
pa dm heJca - sen dam Jehu - sen
this hath eaten their words of [he] hath eaten their spirits,
power.
du uru - sen en dshet-f tuat du her-dbu - sen
Their great ones are for his meal of the morning, their middle ones
are
.^^
1-^ ^\m'i^
A^VVVV\ A^\^V\
IZSZI8
en meshert - f du shereru-sen en dsht-f
for his sunset meal, their little ones are for his meal
a[!!]^^ 51^-1^ 1^'P
du da - se7i datu - sen
of the night, their old ones (male) their old ones (female) are
1 i=s:
rin
A'^^vV> AAVvAA
o o o
luli m^{]
o
7 rm
^
C)&b
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS 51
"a'^
en
for
kapt
his furnace.
an
0 ^
/ an dda em pet
Behold, the great one in heaven
^^0°
/n
P
^-^z p"^a --
utu-nef setchet er uhatu khert-sen
hath shot flame against the cauldrons beneath them
em khepeshu nu semsu - sen du Perer - dmu - pet
with the thighs of the eldest ones. Perer-amu-pet
1
-Ro'
0
o
672, Z77^<xs shesert - ^le/
of Unas hath thro'svn [into] the cauldrons the legs of
ketdt
m
em retu nu
^ ^ ^
1^ ^^ c::i
hemt - sen
A/V\A/V\ AAAWN
tehen - nef
D ^
tem-thd
ail leoen - nej pet
their women. He hath gone round about the double heaven, all of it,
D
du perer - nef dfebu Unas pd
he hath gone round about the two halves of Egypt. Unas this [isj
^1 W fi<^«
sekhem ur sekhem
the sekhem great, the sekhem
515.
nr SI
em sekhemu TJnds
of the sekhemu. Unas
^PkP^li
\n
D ^
;ii
AAA/WA \-i*^ ^2^
Jl 0 0 0
52
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
r
°^" ^^^
ur
qemi - /
jyd dshem dshem asliemu
this [is] the ashem, the ashem of the ashemu great. [What] he findeth
SurS
-I-
V.
em
on
uat -f
his way
dm - / nef su
he eateth it
em. umu
greedily.
du meket Unas em hat sdhu nebu
The protection of Unas [is] before [that of] the sahu all
Pk^¥
dmu khut JJnds pd semes er semsu
in the horizon. Unas this is the eldest of the old ones.
■c=--j /www (3(3(3
Jvhau du uten - nef shdut
thousands, he hath offered hundreds.
du perer - nef
He hath gone round
dti erta - nef d em sehhem ur dn
Hath been given to him the hand as the sekhem great, behold
?
D
r-vr-i
D
(1^^^^
/
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS 53
D on. H III Li n;;> II ^^^ ^^^^^ i -^^ u i i
Sahii dr neterii du 7iem en TJnds hJiatu
^ 517.x nr \\\%.-(Em
]ahu dr neterii du 7iem en TJnds
Orion, with the gods. Hath repeated Unas [his] rising
{sic)
^
u
em jpet .... sehen em neh Miut
in heaven. He is the seben crown as lord of the horizon.
du heseh - nef tesu heqesu du thet - nef
He hath counted up knots [and] livers. He hath taken possession of
laQC] r> •f\ A /l /VNAAAA
. O 111 518.(j^+-_ S^o'
hdtu neteru du dm - nef teshert
the hearts of the gods. He hath eaten the Red Crown,
du am - nef uatchetu usheb TJnds em
he hath eaten the White Crown. Feedeth Unas upon
smau saau hetepf em- dnkh em hdtu
entrails fat, his offering whereon live in [their] hearts
[is that]
AA/VW\
54 SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
heJcau - se^i dsth-f du Unas nesb - / sebeshu
their words of power. Behold,
Unas
eateth what is cast
out
1^
U
dmu teshert df uakhha -/ du helm - sen
[from] the Red Crown, he flourisheth, their words of power
-^ 520. _^^^^ ±^l\ (3)
em Jchat-f dn hem em sahu JJnds
are in his belly, not is turned back the sahu of Unas
kz! ^\
H
1
ma-f du dm - nej sda en neter neb
from him. He hath eaten the intelligence of god every,
dhdu pd neheh tcher-f pd tchetta
[his] period of life [is] eternity, his existence is everlastingness
em
in
sdh - /
his sah.
U
])e7L en merer -/ dr - f
this what he is pleased [to do] he doeth,
9 AA/VWV
• A o o c
SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS 55
mestchetch - f an dr-nef dm teller khut
[what] he hateth not doeth he in the limits of the horizon
tcJietta er neheh seJc ha - sen dmt TJnds
for ever and ever. Behold, their soul [is] in Unas,
kJiu - sen kher TJnds em ha kliet - f
spirits their [are] with Unas, more abundant [is] his food
in ^-Q, — c±tp] 523.
er neteru qerert en TJnds em
than [that of] the gods. The flame of Unas [is] in
CCe I AAWV\ I -v yb J^^ I /WWV\ ^ I .^a n "I I T jTci^^ 1 AAAAAA
qesu - sen sek ha-sen kher TJnds khaibitu-sen
their bones, behold, their soul is with Unas, their shadows
. (l<:=^Vp^ 524.11^ fgy] 1^ \\
Q Q
md dru - sen dii TJnds em enen kJia khd
are with their forms. Unas is with these, rising, rising,
(1= (]=' -^Pt^V ^"^ \^\
\ A/VVW\ 1 AA/WV\ I ] _£lF^ 'I 1 '^ fl
dmen dmen sekhem dru ' dritu ....
hidden, hidden, a sekhem having performed the ordinances
1 -^ 111 I AAAAAA I /VAAAAA
<2>- V\Qr-^^
56 SLAYER AND EATER OF THE GODS
525.^ ojp- J^O (SI
em Tchebes dst-db Unas em
of ploughing, the seat of the heart of Unas [is] among
tv k r^ ^ ^--^M
dnJchu em ta pen tchetta er neheh
the living on earth this for ever and for ever.
( 57 )
CHAPTER II
CONCEPTION OF GOD AND THE "GODS"
T"^HE texts in the p5rraniids of Unas and Teta and their
immediate successors prove that the religious literature of
the Egyptians contains a multitude of beliefs and opinions which
belong to all periods of their history, and represent different stages
in the development of their civilization. Their ideas about the
various parts which constitute their material, and mental, and
spiritual existences cannot have been conceived all at once, but it
is very hard to say in respect of some of them which came first.
We need not trouble about the order of the development of their
ideas about the constituent parts of the gods, for in the earliest
times, at least, the Egyptians only ascribed to them the attributes
which they had already ascribed to themselves; once having
believed that they possessed doubles, shadows, souls, spirits, hearts,
(i.e., the seats of the mental life), names, powers, and spiritual bodies,
they assigned the like to the gods. But if the gods possessed
doubles, and shadows, and hearts, none of which, in the case of
man, can exist without bodies, they too must possess bodies, and
thus the Egyptians conceived the existence of gods who could
eat, and drink, and love, and hate, and fight, and make war, and
grow old, and die, and perish as far as their bodies were concerned.
And although the texts show that in very early times they began
to conceive monotheistic ideas, and to develop beliefs of a highly
spiritual character, the Egyptians never succeeded in abandoning
the crude opinion about the gods which their indigenous ancestors
had formed long before the dynastic period of their history. It is,
of course, impossible to assume that educated classes of Egypt held
such opinions, notwithstanding the fact that religious texts which
58 BELIEFS IN IMMORTALITY
were written for their benefit contain as great a mixture of views
and beliefs of all periods as those which were written for humbler
folk.
The Book of the Dead in all dynasties proves that the rich
and the poor, and the educated and the uneducated alike prayed
for funeral offerings in the very Chapters in which they proclaimed
their sure belief in an existence in which material things were
superfluities. In the texts of the Early Empire the deceased is
declared to be a god, or God, and the son of god, or God, and the
oldest god of all, Horus, gives him his eye, and he sits on a great
throne by the side of God ; yet in the same texts we read that he
partakes of the figs and wine of the gods, that he drinks beer
which lasts for ever, that he thirsts not like the gods Shu and
Tefnut, and that the throne of God is made of iron, that its legs
terminate in hoofs like those of bulls, and that its sides are
ornamented with the faces of lions. ^ The great god Horus gives
him his own " double " (ka)^ and yet there are in heaven enemies
who dare to oppose the deceased ; and although he is declared to
be immortal, " all the gods give him of their food that he may not
" die," and he sits down, clothed in white linen and wearing white
sandals, with the gods by the lake in the Field of Peace, and
partakes with them of the wood (or, tree) of life on which they
themselves live that he also may live. Though he is the son of
God he is also the child of Sothis, and the brother of the Moon,
and the goddess Isis becomes his wife ; though he is the son of
God we are also told that his flesh and his bones have been
gathered together, that his material body has been reconstructed ;
that his limbs perform all the functions of a healthy body ; and as
he lives as the gods live we see that from one point of view he and
the g:ods are constituted alike. Instances of the mixture of
spiritual with material ideas might be multiplied almost inde-
finitely, and numbers of passages containing the most contradictory
statements might be adduced almost indefinitely to prove that the
ideas of the Egyptians about the world beyond the grave, and
about God and the gods were of a savage, childish, and inconsistent
1 The passages from the Pyramid Texts are collected in my Pajiyrzis of Ani,
London, 1894, pp. Ixxi. ff.
COMPOSITE ANIMAL-GODS
59
character. What, however, we have to remember in dealing with
Egyptian religious texts is that the innate conservatism of the
Egyptian in all ages never permitted him to relinquish any belief
which had once found expression in Avriting, and that the written
word was regarded by him as a sacred thing Avhich, whether he
believed it not, must be copied and preserved with great care, and
if possible without any omission or addition whatsoever. Thus
religious ideas and beliefs which had been entirely forgotten by
the people of Egypt generally were preserved and handed down
for thousands of years by the scribes in the temples. The matter
would have been simple enough if they had done this and nothing
more, but unfortunately they incorporated new texts into the
collections of old ones, and the various attempts which the priests
and scribes made to harmonize
them resulted in the confusion
of beliefs which we now have
in Egyptian religious works.
Before we pass to the
consideration of the meaning
of the old Egyptian name for
god and God, i.e., "neter,"
mention must be made of a
class of beings which were
supposed to possess bodies
partly animal and partly human, or were of a composite character.
Among the latter class may be mentioned the creature which has
the body of a leopard and the head and neck of a serpent, and was
called " Setcha," M • J ; and that which has the body of a lion, from
which grow a pair of wings, and the head of an eagle, and is
called " Sefer," I "'; and that which has a body, the fore part
being that of a lion, and the hind part that of a horse, and the
head of a hawk, and an extended tail which terminates in a
flower somewhat resembling the lotus. The name of this creature
is Sak, — »— '^^ S , and she is represented with a collar round her
1 See Cliampollion, Monuments, torn, iv., Paris, 1845, pi. 382.
3 Ibidf See also Newberry, Beni-Hasan, ii., pi. iv.
The serpent-lieaded leopard Setcha.
60
COMPOSITE ANIMAL-GODS
neck, and with bars and stripes on her body, which has eight
teats/ Among creatures, part animal part human, may be men-
tioned the leopard, with a human head and a pair of wings
growing out of his back,^ and
the human - headed lion or
sphinx. The winged human
head which springs from the
back of the leopard^ strongly
reminds one of the modern
conventional representations of
angels in religious pictures,
but as the name of this fabu-
lous creature is unknown, it is
impossible even to guess at the
reasons for which he was fur-
nished with a win2;ed man's
head. In connexion with the composite animals enumerated above
must be mentioned the "Devourer of Amenti," called "Am-mit, the
Eater of the Dead," whose forequarters were those of a crocodile,
and hindquarters those of a hippopotamus, and whose body was
that of a lion, =^
The eagle-headed lion Sefer.
^^P
at Beni-hasan, in which the
figures of the Setcha, the Sefer,
and the Sak are depicted,
date from the Xllth Dynasty,
about B.C. 2500, and there is
no reason for supposing that
their existence was not con-
ceived of long before that
time. Side by side with these
is also depicted an animal
called Sha, M^T, which has
long square ears, and an extended tail resembling an arrow, and in
its general appearance it much resembles the animal of the god Set.
1 See Rosellini, Monumcnti Chili, pi. xxiii., No. 4.
" Ihid., pi. xxiii., No. 6. '^ See Lepsius, Denkmdler, iii., pi. 131.
The fabulous beast Sak.
COMPOSITE ANIMAL-GODS
61
A fabulous leopard.
Two explanations of the existence of such composite creatures
may be given. They may be due either to the imagination of the
Egyptians, which conceived of the existence of quadrupeds wherein
were united the
strength of one
animal and the
wisdom or cunning
of another, e.g.,
the Setcha which
united within itself
the strength of the
leopard with the
cunnino; of the ser-
pent, and the name-
less leopard with a man's winged head, or to the ignorance of
the ancients of natural history. The human head on an animal
represented the intelligence of a man, and the wings the swift
flight of the bird, and the body of the leopard the strength and
the lithe motions of that animal. In conceiving the existence of
such creatures the imagination may have been assisted in its
fabrication of fabulous monsters by legends or stories of pre-
dynastic animals which were current in certain parts of Egypt
during the dynastic period.
Thus, as we have said before,
the monster serpents of Egyp-
tian mythology have their pro-
totypes in the huge serpents
which lived in the country in
primeval times, and there is
no doubt that Apep was,
originally, nothing more than
a huge serpent which lived in
some mountain on the western
bank of the Nile. On the other hand, it is possible that the
Egyptians really believed in the existence of composite animals,
and that they never understood the impossibility of the head and
neck of a serpent growing out of the body of a lion, or the head
The animal Sha.
62 COMPOSITE ANIMAL-GODS
of a hawk out of the body of a lion, or a human head with the
wings of a bird out of the body of a leopard. They were keen
enough observers of the animals with which they came in contact
daily, and their representations of them are wonderful for the
accurate delineation of their forms and characteristics ; but of
animals which they had never seen, and could only know from
the reports of travellers and others, naturally they could not give
accurate representations. Man in all ages seems prone to believe
in the existence of composite animals and monsters, and the most
cultured of the most ancient nations, e.g., the Egyptians and the
Babylonians, form no exception to the rule. The early seal-
cylinders of the Babylonians reveal their belief in the existence
of many a fabulous and mythical animal, aud the boundary stones,
or landmarks, of a later period prove that composite animals were
supposed to watch over the boundaries of kingdoms and estates,
which they preserved from invasion, and the winged man-headed
bulls, which the Assyrians set up in the gates and doorways of
their palaces to "protect the footsteps of the kings Avho made
them," indicate clearly that they duly followed the examples set
them by their kinsmen, the Babylonians. From the Assyrians
Ezekiel probably borrowed the ideas which he developed in his
description in the first chapter of his book of the four-faced and
four-winged animals. Later, even the classical writers appeared
to see no absurdity in solemnly describing animals, the existence
of which was impossible, and in declaring that they possessed
powers which were contrary to all experience and knowledge.
HorapoUo, i. 10, gravely states that the scarabaeus represents an
only begotten, because the scarabaeus is a creature self-produced,
being unconceived by a female, ^jiovoyeve<i fxev 6tl avToyeue<; iart to
^wov^ vTTo ^T^Xetas jxr] Kvo(^opovixevov ; and in one form or another
this statement is given by ^Elian (De. Nat. Animal., iv. 49),
Aristotle {Hist. An., iv. 7), Porphyry {De Ahstlnentia, iv. 9), Pliny
{Nat. Hist., xi. 20 ff.), etc. Of the man-headed lion at Gizeh, i.e.,
the Sphinx, Pliny, Diodorus, Strabo, and other ancient writers
have given long descriptions, and all of them seem to take for
granted the existence of such a creature.
The second explanation, which declares that composite animals
THE WORD NETER 63
are the result of the imagination of peoples who have no knowledge,
or at all events a defective one, of the common facts of natural
history is not satisfactory, for the simple reason that composite
animals which are jDartly animal and partly human in their powers
and characteristics form the logical link between animals and man,
and as such they belong to a certain period and stage of develop-
ment in the history of every primitive people. If we think for a
moment we shall see that many of the gods of Egypt are closely
connected with this stage of development, and that comparatively
few of them Avere ever represented wholly in man's form.
The Egyptians clung to their representations of gods in animal
forms with great tenacity, and even in times when it is certain
they cannot have believed in their existence they continued to
have them sculptured and |)ainted upon the walls of their temples ;
curiously enough, they do not seem to have been sensible of the
ridicule which their conservatism brought down upon them from
strangers.
We have already said above that the common word given by
the Egyptians to God, and god, and spirits of every kind, and
beings of all sorts, and kinds, and forms, which were supposed to
possess any superhuman or supernatural power, was neter, ^ ,
and the hieroglyph which is used both as the determinative of this
word and also as an ideograph is | . Thus we have | or | Jj ,
"god," and ^^^, or "] |, or ^^l], or '^Cl \> "gods;" the plural is
sometimes written out in full, e.g., ^ v wj ' • ^^^ common word
for "goddess" is netert, which can be written T'^, or 1 ^=>,
or I ^=>; sometimes the determinative of the word is a woman,
J) , and at other times a serpent, e.g. "1 ^=> J)^ . The plural is
NETERiT, I ^^ ^4 ^ B\ '• ^® ^^^® ^ow to cousidcr what object is
supposed to be represented by | , and what the word neter means.
In Bunsen's Egypt's Place (i., Nos. 556, 557, 623) the late Dr. Birch
described I as a hatchet; in 1872 Dr. Brugsch placed ^ T among
"objets tranchants, armes," in his classified list of hieroglyphic
1 Index des MeroglyjpJies pTionetiques, No. 39 i.
64 THE AXE A SYMBOL OF GOD
characters ; thus it is clear that the two greatest masters of Egypt-
ology considered l to be either a weapon or a cutting tool, and, in
fact, assumed that the hieroglyphic represented an axe-head let into
and fastened in a long wooden handle. From the texts wherein
the hieroglyphics are coloured it is tolerably clear that the axe-head
was fastened to its handle by means of thongs of leather. The
earliest axe-heads were made of stone, or flint or chert, and later of
metal, and it is certain that when copper, bronze, and iron took the
place of stone or flint, the method by which the head was fastened
to the handle was considerably modified. Recently an attempt has
been made to show that the axe, | , resembled in outline " a roll of
" yellow cloth, the loAver part bound or laced over, the upper part
" appearing as a flap at the top probably for unwinding. It is
" possible, indeed, that the present object represents a fetish, e.g.,
'' a bone carefully wound round with cloth and not the cloth
" alone." -^ But it need hardly be said that no evidence for the
correctness of these views is forthcoming. Whether the hiero-
glyphic I was copied from something which was a roll of cloth or
a fetish matters little, for the only rational determination of the
character is that which has already been made by Drs. Birch and
Brugsch, and the object which is represented by | is, in the
writer's opinion, an axe and nothing else,
Mr. Legge has collected^ a number of examples of the
presence of the axe as an emblem of divinity on the megaliths of
Brittany and in the prehistoric remains of the funeral caves of the
Marne, of Scandinavia, and of America, and, what is very much to
the point, he refers to an agate cylinder which was published by
the late Adrien de Longperier, wherein is a representation of a
priest in Chaldaean garb ofl'ering sacrifice to an axe standing
upright upon an altar. Mr. Legge points out "that the axe
"appears on these monuments not as the representation of an
" object in daily use, but for religious or magical purposes," and
goes on to say that this is proved by "the fact that it is often
" found as a pendant and of such materials as gold, lead, and even
"amber; while that it is often represented with the peculiar
" fastenings of the earlier flint weapon shows that its symbolic use
1 Griffith, Hieroglyphs, p. 46. 2 Proc, Soc. Bihl. Arch., 1899, p. 310.
THE AXE A SYMBOL OF GOD 65
"goes back to the neolithic and perhaps the palaeoHthic age."
He is undoubtedly correct in thinking that the use of the stone axe
precedes that of the flint arrow-head or flint knife, and many facts
could be adduced in support of this view. The stone tied to the
end of a stick formed an effective club, which was probably the
earliest weapon known to the predynastic Egyptians, and subse-
quently man found that this weapon could be made more effective
still by making the stone flat and by rubbing down one end of it
to form a cutting edge. The earliest axe-head had a cutting edge
at each end, and was tied by leather thongs to the end of a stick
by the middle, thus becoming a double axe ; examples of such a
weapon appear to be given on the green slate object of the archaic
period which is preserved in the British Museum^ (Nos. 20,790,
20,792), where, however, the axe-heads appear to be fixed in
forked wooden handles. In its next form the axe-head has only
one cutting edge, and the back of it is shaped for fastening to
a handle by means of leather thongs. When we consider the
importance that the axe, whether as a weapon or tool, was to
primitive man, we need not wonder that it became to him first
the symbol of physical force, or strength, and then of divinity or
dominion. By means of the axe the predynastic Egyptians cut
down trees and slaughtered animals, in other words, the weapon
was mightier than the spirits or gods who dwelt in the trees and
the animals, and as such became to them at a very early period
an object of reverence and devotion. But besides this the axe
must have been used in sacrificial ceremonies, wherein it would
necessarily acquire great importance, and would easily pass into
the symbol of the ceremonies themselves. The shape of the axe-
head as given by the common hieroglyphic | suggests that the
head was made of metal when the Egyptians first began to use the
character as the symbol of divinity, and it is clear that this change
in the material of which the axe -head was made would make the
weapon more effective than ever.
Taking for granted, then, that the hieroglyphic T represents
an axe, A^e may be sure that it was used as a symbol of power and
^ See my History of Egypt, vol. ii., p. 10, where it is figured and described.
F
66 THE WORD NETER
divinity by the predynastic Egyptians long before the period when
they were able to write, but we have no means of knowing what
they called the character or the axe before that period. In
dynastic times they certainly called it neter as we have seen, but
another difficulty presents itself to us when we try to find a word
that will express the meaning Avhich they attached to the word ; it
is most important to obtain some idea of this meaning, for at the
hase of it lies, no doubt, the Egyptian conception of divinity or
God. The word neter has been discussed by many Egyptologists,
but their conclusions as to its signification are not identical.
M. Pierret thought in 1879 that the true meaning of the word is
■" renewal, because in the mythological conception, the god assures
^'himself everlasting youth by the renewal of himself in engender-
■" ing himself perpetually." ^ In the same year, in one of the
Hibbert Lectures, Renouf declared that he was " able to affirm
^' with certainty that in this jDarticular case we can accurately
"determine the primitive notion attached to the word," i.e., to
NUTAR (neter). Accordiug to him, " none of the explanations
"hitherto given of it can be considered satisfactory," but he
thought that the explanation which he was about to propose would
*' be generally accepted by scholars," because it was " arrived at as
" the result of a special study of all the published passages in which
^' the word occurs." ^ Closely allied to nutar (neter) is another
word nutra (netra), and the meaning of both was said by Renouf
to be found in the Coptic rtoJUtTe or rfOJUi+, which, as we may
see from the passages quoted by Tatham in his Lexicon (p. 310), is
rendered by the Greek words tcr^^vg, 7rapdKkiqcn<^, and TrapaKaXelv.
The primary meaning of the word rfOJUi+ appears to be " strong,"
and having assumed that neter was equivalent in meaning to
this word, Renouf stated boldly that neter signified "mighty,"
" might," " strong," and argued that it meant Power, " which is
*'also the meaning of the Hebrew El." We may note in passing
1 " Le mot par lequel on rendait I'idce de Dieu | ^ i nuter, signifie au
*'■ propre, ' renouvellement,' parce que dans la conception mythologique, le dieu
•' s'assure une eternelle jeunesse par le renouvellement de lui-meme, en s'engendrant
" lui-meme perpctuellement." Essai sur la Mijthologie lEgypticnne, Pai'is, 1879, p. S.
~ ReUgioji of Ancient Egypt, p. 93.
THE WORD NETER 67
that the exact meaning of "El," the Hebrew name for God, is
unknown, and that the word itself is probably the name of an
ancient Semitic deity.
The passages which were quoted to prove that neter meant
" strong, strength, power," and the like could, as M. Maspero has
said,^ be explained differently. M. Maspero combats rightly the
attempt to make "strong" the meaning of neter (masc), or
NETERiT (fem.), in these words : " In the expressions ' a town
" neterit,' ' an arm neteri,' .... is it certain that ' a strong city,'
" ^ a strong arm,' gives us the primitive sense of neter ? When
" among ourselves one says ' divine music,' ' a piece of divine
" poetry,' ' the divine taste of a peach,' ' the divine beauty of a
" woman ' [the word] divine is a hyperbole, but it would be a
" mistake to declare that it originally meant ' exquisite ' because
" in the phrases which I have imagined one could apply it as
" ' exquisite music,' ' a piece of exquisite poetry,' ' the exquisite
" taste of a peach,' ' the exquisite beauty of a woman.' Similarly
" in Egyptian ' a town netevit ' is a ' divine town ' ; ' an arm
" neteri ' is ' a divine arm,' and neteri is employed metaphorically
" in Egyptian as is [the word] ' divine ' in French, without its
" being any more necessary to attribute to [the word] neteri the
"primitive meaning of 'strong,' than it is to attribute to [the
" word] ' divine ' the primitive meaning of ' exquisite.' The
" meaning ' strong ' of neteri, if it exists, is a derived and not an
" original meaning." ^
The view taken about the meaning of neter by the late
Dr. Brugsch was entirely different, for he thought that the
fundamental meaning of the word was " the operative power which
" created and produced things by periodical recurrence, and gave
" them new life and restored to them the freshness of youth (die
" thatige Kraft, welche in periodischer Wiederkehr die Dinge
" erzeugt und erschafft, ihnen neues Leben verleiht und die
" Jugendfrische zuriickgiebt." ^ The first part of the work from
which these words are quoted appeared in 1885, but that Dr.
Brugsch held much the same views six years later is evident
1 Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archeologie Sgyptiennes, torn, ii., p. 215.
2 Maspero, op. cit., p. 215. ^ Eeligion und Mythologie, p. 93.
68 THE WORD NETER
from the following extract from his volume entitled Die Aegypto-
logie (p. 166), which appeared in 1891. Referring to Renonf's
contention that neter has a meaning equivalent to the Greek
Bvpafxt^, he says, " Es liegt auf der Hand, dass der Gottesname in
*• Sinne von Starker, Miichtiger, vieles fur sich hat, um so mehr
" als selbst leblose Gegenstande, wie z. B. ein Baustein, adjek-
" tivisch als nutri d. h. stark, miichtig, nicht selten bezeichnet
" werden. Aber so vieles diese ErklUrung fiir sich zu haben
" schient, so wenig stimmt sie zu der Thatsache, dass in den
" Texten aus der besten Zeit (XVIII Dynastie) das Wort nutr als
" ein Synonym fiir die Vorstellung der Verjungung oder Erneue-
" rung auftritt. Es diente zum Ausdruck der periodisch wieder-
" kehrenden Jugendfrische nach Alter und Tod, so dass selbst dem
" Menschen in den altesten Sarginschriften zugerufen wird, er sei
" fortan in einen Gott d. h. in ein Wesen mit jugendlicher Frische
" umgewandelt. Ich lasse es dahin gestellt sein, nach welcher
" Richtung hin die aufgeworfene Streitfrage zu Gunsten der einen
" oder der anderen AufFassung entschieden werden wird ; hier
" sei nur betont, dass das Wort | nuh\ nute, den eigentlichen
" GottesbegrifF der alten Aegypter in sich schliesst und daher einen
" ganz besonderen Aufmerksamkeit werth ist."
In this passage Dr. Brugsch substantially agrees with Pierrot's
views quoted above, but he appears to have withdrawn from the
position which he took up in his Religion und Mythologie, wherein
he asserted that the essential meanins; of neter was identical with
that of the Greek <^vcrt? and the Latin " natura." ^ It need hardly
be said that there are no good grounds for such an assertion, and
it is difficult to see how the eminent Egyptologist could attempt
to compare the conceptions of God formed by a half-civilized
African people with those of such cultured nations as the Greeks
and the Romans.
The solution of the difficulty of finding a meaning for neter
is not brought any nearer when we consider the vioAvs of such
distinguished Egyptologists as E. de Rouge, Lieblein, and Maspero.
1 " Der lubegi'iff dieses Wortes deckt sich dalier vollstiiudig mit der ur-
" spriinglichen Bedeutung des griechisclien physis und des lateinisclien natura."
(p. 93.)
THE WORD NETER 69
The first of these ia commenting on the passage | rjj | '^ ^-3
(variant | ^ (jQ - ) '^^^ i y ^^ ? which he translates " Dieu
" devenant dieu (en) s'engendrant lui-meme," says in his excellent
Ghrestomathie Egijjptienne (iii. p. 24), " One knows not exactly the
" meaning of the verb miter, which forms the radical of the word
" nuter, ' god.' It is an idea analagous to ' to become,' or ' renew
" oneself,' for nuteri is applied to the resuscitated soul which
" clothes itself in its immortal form." Thus we find that one of
the greatest Egyptologists thinks that the exact meaning of neter
is unknown, but he suggests that it may have a signification not
unlike that proposed by Pierret. Prof. Lieblein goes a step
further than E. de Rouge, for he is of opinion that it is impossible
to show the first origin of the idea of God among any people hitherto
known historically. " When we, for instance, take the Indo-
" Europeans, what do Ave find there ? The Sanskrit word deva is
" identical with the Latin deus, and the northern tivi, tivar ; as
" now the word in Latin and northern language signifies God it
" must also in Sanskrit from the beginning have had the same
" signification. That is to say, the Arians, or Indo-Europeans,
" must have combined the idea of God with this word, as early as
" when they still lived together in their original home. Because,
" if the word in their pre-historic home had had another more
" primitive signification, the wonder Avould have happened, that
" the word had accidentally gone through the same development
" of signification with all these people after their separation. As
" this is quite improbable, the word must have had the significa-
" tion of God in the original Indo-European language. One could
" go even farther and presume that, in this language also, it was
" a word derived from others, and consequently originated from a
" still earlier pre-historic language. All things considered it is
" possible, even probable, that the idea of God has developed itself
" in an earlier period of languages, than the Indo-European. The
" future will perhaps be able to supply evidence for this. The
" science of languages has been able partly to reconstruct an Indo-
'' European pre-historic language. It might be able also to
" reconstruct a pre-historic Semitic, and a pre-historic Hamitic,
70 THE WORD NETER
" and of these three pre-historic languages, whose original con-
" nexion it not only guesses, but even commences to prove
" gradually, it will, we trust in time, be able to extract a still
" earlier pre-historic language, which according to analogy might
" be called Noahitic, When we have come so far, we shall most
" likely in this pre-historic language, also find words expressing
" the idea of God. But it is even jDOssible that the idea of God
" has not come into existence in this pre-historic language either.
" It may be that the first dawning of the idea, and the word God
" should be ascribed to still earlier languages, to layers of languages
'' so deeply buried that it will be impossible even to excavate
" them. Between the time of inhabiting ca^es in the quaternian
" period, and the historical kingdoms, there is such a long space of
" time, that it is difficult to entertain the idea, that it was quite
" devoid of any conception of divinity, so that this should first
" have sprung up in the historical time. In any case we shall not
" be able to prove historically where and when the question first
" arose, who are the superhuman powers whose activity we see
" daily in nature and in human life. Although the Egyptians are
" the earliest civilized people known in history, and just therefore
" especially important for the science of religion, yet it is even
" there impossible to point out the origin of the conception of the
" deity. The oldest monuments of Egypt bring before us the
" gods of nature chiefly, and among these especially the sun.
" They mention, however, already early (in the IVth and Vth
" Dynasties) now and then the great power, or the great God, it
" being uncertain whether this refers to the sun, or another god of
" nature, or if it was a general appellation of the vague idea of a
" supernatural power, possibly inherited by the Egyptians. It is
" probably this great God indicated on the monuments, from the
" the IVth Dynasty, and later on, who has given occasion to the
" false belief that the oldest religion of the Egyptians was pure
" monotheism. But firstly, it must he observed, that he is not
" mentioned alone but alongside of the other gods, secondly, that
" he is merely called ' The great God,' being otherwise without
" distinguishing appellations, and a God of whom nothing else is
" mentioned, has, so to speak, to use Hegel's language, merely an
THE WORD NETER 71
" abstract existence, that by closer examination dissolves into
" nothing."
It is necessary to quote Professor Lieblein's opinion at length
because he was one of the first to discuss the earliest idea of God in
connection with its alleged similarity to that evolved by Aryan
nations ; if, however, he were to rewrite the passage given above in
the light of modern research he Avould, we think, modify many of
his conclusions. For our present purpose it is sufficient to note
that he believes it is impossible to point out the origin of the
conception of the deity among the Egyptians. The last opinion
which we need quote is that of M. Maspero, who not only says
boldly that if the word netee or netri really has the meaning of
" strong " it is a derived and not an original meaning, and he
prefers to declare that the word is so old that its earliest significa-
tion is unkno^v^l. In other words, it has the meaning of god, but
it teaches us nothing as to the primitive value of this word. We
must be careful, he says, not to let it suggest the modern religious
or philosophical definitions of god which are current to-day, for an
Egyptian god is a being who is born and dies, like man, and is
finite, imperfect, and corporeal, and is endowed with passions, and
virtues, and vices. ^ This statement is, of course, true as regards
the gods of the Egyptians at several periods of their history, but it
must be distinctly understood, and it cannot be too plainly stated,
that side by side with such conceptions there existed, at least
among the educated Egyptians, ideas of monotheism which are not
far removed from those of modern nations.
From what has been said above we see that some scholars take
the view that the word neter may mean "renewal," or "strength,"
or " strong," or " to become," or some idea which suggests "renewal,"
and that others think its original meaning is not only unknown,
but that it is impossible to find it out. But although we may not
be able to discover the exact meaning which the word had in j)re-
dynastic times, we may gain some idea of the meaning which was
attached to it in the dynastic period by an examination of a few
passages from the hymns and Chapters which are found in the
1 Egyptian Beligion, by J. Lieblein, Leipzig, 1884.
" La Mytliologie jSgyptienne (iStudes cle Mythologie, torn, ii., p. 215).
72
THE WORD NETER
various versions of the Book of the Bead. In the text of Pepi 1.
(line 191) we have the words : — " Behold thy son Horus, to whom
^' thou hast given birth. He hath not placed this Pepi at the
'^' head of the dead, but he hath set him among the gods neteru,'*
U
^^_ 1 % ^^mi'^^V* ^^^ ^^^® neteru, "1 <^ "^ »
must be an adjective, and we are clearly intended to understand
that the gods referred to are those which have the attribute of
neteru; since the "gods neteru," | | | | <^ "vN , are mentioned in
opposition to "the dead" it seems as if we are to regard the
gods as " living," i.e., to possess the quality of life. In the text of
the same king (line 419) a bdk ?ie^er, J (1 ^^z:::^ ^^ | <=:>, i.e., a
hawk having the quality of neter is mentioned ; and in the text of
Unas (line 569) we read of Ijaui netrui, ^^,<^,^^, or the two
souls which possess the quality of nete7\ These examples belong
to the Vth and Vlth Dynasties. Passing to later dynasties, i.e.,
the XVIIIth and XlXth, etc., we find the following examples of
the use of the words neter and netri : —
i-i±^i^^^ioi TrZ-i\n\^'
hun
Boy
\\
netri
netri.
aa
O
Iwli
utet se-mes su tchesef
h-eir of eternity, begetting and giving birth
to himself.
^ w
I
ta-d til em dh-d dti halcai
I am devoted in my heart Avithout feigning
111
w
netri
0 thou netri
er neteru
more than the gods.
1 See my Chapters of Coming Forth J>y Day, Text, p. 11, 1. 10.
2 lUd., p. 43, 1. 4.
THE WORD NETER
73
tchel - tu re pen her
Shall be said this chapter over
4.
1
neter - hid
I have become neter.
I AAAA/V\ ■<j
I *~ > I I "^ I
mahu en netrdt
a crown of netrdt.
^\
e
^i ^ J^
dit - d hlid - hud
I have risen up
6.
n
AA/VW\
AAA/VV\
«&
^t<(i
1
w
em &(i^ Tze^rz
in the form of a hawk ^^ei^W.
1
Hefe?' - hud
hJiu
hud
I have become pure, I have become 7ieter, I have become a
spirit (hhu),
■user - hud ha - hud
I have become strong, I have become a soul (&«).
unen-f neter md neteru em Neter -hhertet
His being neter with the gods in the Neter-khertet.
(or, he shall be)
1
du - /
He shall
netrd
netrd
hhat-f
his body
^ 6
temtu
all.
1 See my Chapters of Coming Forth by JDaij, p. 80, 1. 10.
2 I6icZ., p. 154, 1. 6. 3 IZ/iVI., p. 168, 1. 3. ^ lud., p. 174, 1. 15.
= J6«VZ., p. 417, 1. 12. 6 jjj^,^ p^ 419^ i, 7,
74
'•1
THE WORD NETER
netri u ha - h em ^;er Sehut
They make neter thy soul in the house of Sebut.
''■ ^^{L
netri - / })a - h md neteru
He makes neter thy soul like the gods.
03
0
'1-11 l^fl s-^
neter netri Icheper tchesef paut
God netri, self-produced, primeval matter.
Kow, in the above examples it is easy to see that although the
words " strong " or " strength," when applied to translate neter or
netri, give a tolerably suitable sense in some of them, it is quite
out of place in others, e.g., in No. 6, where the deceased is made to
say that he has acquired the quality of neter, and a spirit, and a
soul, and is, moreover, strong; the word rendered "strong" in
this passage is user, and it expresses an entirely different idea from
neter. From the fact that neter is mentioned in No. 1 in connection
with eternal existence, and self-begetting, and self-production, and
in No. 11 with self-production and primeval matter, it is almost
impossible not to think that the word has a meaning which is
closely allied to the ideas of " self-existence," and the power to
" renew life indefinitely," and " self-production." In other words,
neter appears to mean a being who has the power to generate life,
and to maintain it when generated. It is useless to attempt to ex-
plain the word by Coptic etymologies, for it has passed over directly
into the Coptic language under the forms nouti rfovi", ^^^ noute
rfOYTe, the last consonant, r, having disappeared through phonetic
decay, and the translators of the Holy Scriptures from that language
used it to express the words " God " and " Lord." Meanwhile, until
new light is thrown upon the subject by the discovery of inscrip-
1 See my Chapters of Covniuj Forth hij Day, Text, p. 509, 1. 13.
2 Ibid, p. 511, 1. 13. ' ^ Ibid, p. 49, 1. 1.
THE PRIMITIVE GOD 75
tions older than any which we now have, we must be content to
accept the approximate meaning of neter suggested above.
The worship of the gods (neterii), which began far away-
back in predynastic times, continued through the archaic and
dynastic periods, and lasted until the LVth or Vth century of
our era ; it is tolerably certain that in respect of some of them the
ideas of the Egyptians never changed, but, as regards others, their
views did not remain as constant as some writers would have us
imagine. In the earliest days every village community in Egypt
had its local god, who shared the good or evil fortune of the
community to which he belonged. His emblem or symbol was
carried out to war, and was, of course, present at aU great public
gatherings when matters connected with the welfare of his devotees
were discussed. A special habitation was set apart for him, and
its upkeep was provided for out of common funds. As the riches
of the people of the \allage increased, the rank and dignity of their
god kept pace with them, but his revenues suffered in times of
scarcity, and defeat, and war ; his emblem might even be carried
off into captivity and burnt, or smashed, when, of course, the spirit
which dwelt in his symbol was also destroyed. The number of
such early gods was legion, for many large communities possessed
several gods, each of which was famed locally for some particular
attribute. When a man left one villao;e and settled in another
he took his god or gods with him, but he would be obliged to
acknowledge the god of the village or city in which he had made his
new abode, and to contribute towards the maintenance of his house
and its small compound. The reduction in the number of the gods
of Egypt began when man first realized that certain gods were
mightier than others, for he ceased gradually to worship those
who had, in his opinion, failed to justify his belief in them, and
transferred his allegiance to the gods who were able to give him
the most help. In process of time the god or goddess of a certain
village or town would obtain a fame and reputation for power
which would outrival those of the deities of the neighbouring
cities, and the growth of the worship of such god or goddess would
be accompanied by a corresponding decline in that of the gods in
the towns round about. The gods, in the first instance, grew by
76 SELECTION OF GODS
a process of selection out of the spirits who were well disposed
towards man and were helpful to him, and the ''great gods " of the
Egyptians were evolved, practically, in a somewhat similar manner.
It is at present hopeless to attempt to enumerate all the gods
who were, from first to last, worshijDped by the Egyptians, for it
will not be possible to do this until every text extant has been
published. Meanwhile an examination of the earliest Egyptian
religious literature known to us proves that a number of gods who
were of some importance in the polytheistic system of the Early
Empire dropped out from it long before the period of the New
Empire, and thus it is very doubtful if Ave shall ever be able to
collect the names of all the gods who have been worshipped in the
Valley of the Nile between the Archaic and Roman periods, whilst
to make a list of all the predynastic gods is manifestly impossible.
Future discoveries in Egypt may produce texts that will tell
us which were the favourite gods in the archaic period and give us
some idea as to the pronunciation of their names, for we have
reason to think that during the greater part of that period the
Egyptians were able to write. If ever such texts are brought to
light we shall probably find that the gods who were Avorshipped
during the archaic period Avere those Avho Avere popular in the
predynastic period, just as we find that the gods of the Egyptians
of the Middle and New Empires were to all intents and purposes
the same as those of the Egyptians of the Early Empire. Speaking
generally, it may be said that the Egyptians of the greater part of
the dynastic period of their history invented feAv ncAv gods, and
that they were Avell content to Avorship such deities as Avere known
to their ancestors ; Ave know that they admitted, at times, foreign
gods into the assembly of the old Egyptian gods, but the religious
texts prove that they Avere never alloAved to usurp the functions of
the indigenous gods. Political and other reasons might secure for
them a certain amount of recognition in the country generally, and
the people of the cities Avhere their emblems and statues found
resting-places treated them Avith the easy toleration Avhich is so
marked a characteristic of many countries in the East ; but as soon
as such reasons disajDpeared the foreign gods Avere quietly ignored,
and in a short time their Avorship Avas forgotten. This statement is
GODS OF THE EARLIEST DYNASTIES 77
not intended to apply to the gods who Avere introduced from one
city or district of Egypt into another, for we know that the
Egyptian priesthood and people of a given city were ready to show
hospitality to almost any god of any town, or city, or district, pro-
vided that he belonged to the same comjniny as that of which the
chief local god was a member.
We have, unfortunately, no long connected religious texts in
the forms in which they must have existed under the first four
dynasties, and we cannot therefore say what gods were worshipped
during that period. There is, as has been shown elsewhere,^ good
reason for believing that some parts of the Booh of the Dead were
revised or edited during the early part of the period of the 1st
Dynasty, and if this be so we may assume that the religious system
of the Egyptians as revealed in the texts of a much later time closely
resembled that which was in existence in the later part of the
archaic period, i.e., during the first three dynasties. Under the Vth
and VI th Dynasties we touch firmer ground, and we find abundant,
though not complete, materials for the study of the gods of Egypt
and their attributes in the lengthy hieroglyphic texts which were
inscribed inside the pyramid tombs of Unas, Teta, Pejoi I., Mer-en-
Ra-Mehti-em-sa-f, and Pepi II. An examination of these texts
reveals the existence of an established theological system in Egypt,
and we find that even at that time the literature in which it was,
more or less, expounded, contained innumerable layers of religious
thought and expressions of belief which belonged to periods many
of which must have been separated by long intervals of time. The
gods are mentioned in such a way as to prove that the writers of
the texts, or at least the copyists, assumed that the reader would
be well acquainted with the subject matter of the compositions, and
from first to last neither explanation nor gloss is to be found in
them. The texts are, of course, sepulchral, and the greater number
of the gods mentioned in them are referred to in their characters
as gods who deal with the souls of the dead in the world beyond
the grave.
The Sun-god Ra and the gods of his cycle, and Osiris, the god
and judge of the dead, and the gods of his cycle, have definite
1 See iny Boole of the Dead, London, 1901, vol. i., p. xxxiii.
78 GODS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
positions and duties assigned to them, and it is very clear that both
the texts which describe these and the ceremonies which were
performed in connection with the words recited by the priests were,
even under the Vth Dynasty, extremely ancient. Moreover, it is
certain that the religious texts in use for fimeral purposes under
that dynasty are substantially those which were compiled several
centuries before. We may note in passing that the funeral books
were edited by the priests of Annu or Ann, i.e., Heliopolis, and as
a result they exhibit traces of the influence of the theological
opinions of the great priestly college of that city ; but at bottom
the views and beliefs which may be deduced from them, and the
fundamental conceptions to which they give expression are the
products of the minds of the predynastic, indigenous Egyptians.
To the consideration of the Heliopolitan religious system we shall
return later, and we may therefore pass on to the enumeration of
the principal gods who are made known to us by the Pyramid
Texts at Sakkara. Among the great gods who were certainly
worshipped in the early archaic period may be mentioned : —
Ptah (Teta 88) ° | ^em,^ or Horus (Mer-en-Ra 454)
/WVW\ J
Nu (Unas 199)
Net, or Neith (Unas 67)
Ra {passim) O
Het-Heru (Hathor)
Kheper j (Unas 444) ^z^ g
Kheprer) (PepiII.S56) -crib's ^
Khnemu (Unas 556) 9^
Sebek (Unas 565) [1 J
Of these gods Heru, or Horus, was the hawk-god, i.e., the
spirit and personification of the "height" of heaven ; Kheper was
the beetle-god ; Khnemu the ram-god ; and Sel^ek the crocodile-
god ; Net or Neith was originally a wood-spirit, Ra and Ptah were
two forms of the Sun-god, and Nu Avas the watery mass of heaven
1 Or, OO (Unas, 399), or ^^^ ^ (Teta, 78).
2 Or, ^ (Unas, 272).
3 Or, ^ ^^ Heru-ur, " Horus the elder " (Unas, 358).
GODS OF THE PYRAMID TEXTS
79
in Avhicli he lived. With Ra and Kheper the priests of Heliopolis
associated the form of the Sun-god which was specially worshipped
in their city, and thus we have mentioned the compound gods
Ra-Tem ©^ (Unas 216, 224, Mer-en-Ra 458), and Tem-
^^^P^^^'^ ^ S ^ ^ (^^Pi II- ^^2). In the text of Unas
(line 626) Sebek is styled " son of Net," ^ ^ "V^, and he is also
called "lord of Barn," J "J^ -<s>- ^ [v^ (line 565); but if the
XVIIIth Dynasty texts be correct the name of this place is mis-
spelt, and in any case it must be identical Avith the Bakhau,
J ^ m ^^ ^ S ' ^^' ^^C)untain of the Sunrise of Chapter cviii.
of the Booh of the Dead. The following is a list of the other
principal gods mentioned in the Pyramid Texts : —
Ahu (Pepi II. 850)
r^^^-^ t\ 1
Aker (Unas 498, 614, Teta 309)
Api (Unas 487) . I] D
Ap-uat (Unas 187) V f^^
Amen (Unas 557)
Ament (Unas 557)
Am-henth-f (Pepi I. 666)
iii)f mn
Am-sepa-f (Pepi I. 666)
S'ttttS
Amsu or Min (Unas 377)
Amset (Teta 60, 197) h |\
Ana (Unas 272, 275) H (j j^
Anpu (Unas 71, 207, 219) ^
An-mut-f (Pepi 11. 772)
An-tcher-f (Pepi I. 651)
Akhet-nen-tha (Teta 307)
t\ ^ /WV\AA "\ n f\
1 ^ /wwv^ 0 1 "^
Asar, Osiris (passim) A
Ast, Isis (Unas 181) A
Asken (Pepi II. 1324) t\ ^
xiter-asfet (Pepi II. 980)
f
1 Ahu appears to be identical with
Pepi II., 1. 1320.
Ankh (Pepi I. 672)
^=^-
, who is Amsu or Min -aofc- ; see
80
GODS OF THE PYRAMID TEXTS
I-en-lier-pes (Unas 392)
Ualm (Teta 333) f{lfW
Ur-sheps-f (Pepi I. 671)
^^. The
variants are ^^^^ Vi> (1 1
Urt (Unas 272)
Urt-hekau (Unas 269)
V
Usert (Unas 229) ^ "] P "T
Uthes (Pepi II. 976)
Ba (Mer-en-Ra 784) o^
Baba (Unas 532) J ^ J 1
Babi (Unas 644, 647) J^ J (]()
Baabu (Pepi I. 568) J "^f) J^
Babua (Pepi I. 604) J "^ J^(]'
Bastet (Pepi L 569) JP"^^"'
Ba-ashem-f (Mer-en-Ra 784)
^ Ment (Pepi 11. 849) = \
° ' '^ Mentef (Pepi II. 1228)
D
AA/\AAA
I II
III -^^
Pent (Unas 280)
Pesetchet (Unas 417)
Maat-Khnemu(PepiI.445) ^ Q
Maat (Unas 220) ^
Menth (Mer-en-Ra 784) "
Meht-urt (Unas 427, 623)
Meht-urt (Unas 427, 623)
cxzzx: fwv\/V\ "^^^^^^^
A.AAAAA _JX_~^
/VW\AA
Em-khent-maati (Pepi I. 645)
Em-khent-maati (Pepi I. 645)
^ -C2>-
<A
Meskha (Unas 567) | ^ ^ ^
Meskhaat (Pepi I. 671)
Metchetat (Pepi 11. 956)
Nau (Unas 557) ^^-^ (] ^
Nubt (Unas 479) f^ J ^ >^-J
Nebt-het (Unas 220)
Nefer-Tem (Unas 395) J
clinic
1 This god is said to have a " red ear " ^"^ ^. ~ Var. ^ p ^
GODS OF THE PYRAMID TEXTS 81
Hem (Pepi I. 641) \a^ "
Hemen (Pepi H. 850) § '^^^ ^
/N AA/WV\
<0 C 1
Enen (Unas 557)) -j--j-
Enenet (Unas 240)) ;].1|,
Xekhben (Unas 459) XJo
Nehebkau (Unas 559)
Nekhebet (Mer-en-Ra 762)
Neht (Unas 601)
A/V>
Nesert (Unas 269)
— M '— ' ^
Neti (Unas 279) cr^lf^
Netetthab (Unas 598) ^ ^ |fl 'O'
Renenut (Unas 441)
Rurutha (Pepi H. 976, 979)
Hepath (Pepi I. 636)
Henena (Pepi I. 636) ral|.;^(ji
Hetchhetch (Pepi I. 173)
Hettenuut (Teta, 332)
Hu (Unas 439) ^ ^ -^
Hep (Unas 187) | ^
Hep-ur (Unas 481) ^ °
Hep (Teta 60, 197)
Id
Hen-pesetchti (Teta 309)
Hent (Unas 417) ^ ^ ^
Hunt (Teta 357) | + ^ ^
Heru (passim) ^^
Heru-aah (Teta 365) ^^
Heru-am-henu (Unas 211)
Heru-khent-peru (Unas 202)
^ m n
H eru-kliesbetcb-maat i(Unas3 69)
Hem-khuttha (Unas 471)
Heru-Sept (Unas 465) ^P/\^
Heru-tesher-maati (Unas 369)
Hem-Tat (Unas 218)
Heru-khart (Teta 301)
Hra-f-ha-f (Pepi I.)
Her-hepes (Unas 226) "^ § °
< — > A. — *■
82
GODS OF THE PYRAMID TEXTS
Hesat (Pepi II. 976)
Hesmennu (Mer-en-Ra 670)
Het-Hert (Unas 575)
Heka (Pepi I. 583)
Heqet (Pepi I. 570)
U
A
Q n '^^
Khaata (Unas 536) m ^
Khebetch (Unas 434) ® J ^
Khent-Amenti (Unas 201) ^ o<&=
Khent-maati (Unas 218)
Khnemu (Unas 556, Pepi I. 455)
Khensu (Unas 510) ® -^^%
A/WV\A ll
Khensu-Sept (Unas 588)
Saa (Unas 439) [1 (1 ^ "^ k
Sathet (Pepi I. 297) [1 (] ^^^
Seb (Unas 234) "^ J
Sephu-urt (Pepi II. 976)
Sept (Unas 219) Aft
Sma-ur (Unas 280)
Smentet (Teta 355) ^
Sunth (Pepi II. 854) — ^
Seref-ur (Teta 309) p^
Serqet (Pepi I. 647)
Serqet-lietu (Teta 207)
A ^
Sehepu (Pepi I. 685) ^^ ^ □
Sekhemf (Pepi II. 978)
Sekhen-ta-en-ur (Unas 281)
Sekhet (Unas 390)
Sashsa (Pepi II. 975)
p
Seker (Pepi I. 641)
Seksen (Pepi I. 650)
Set (Unas 6)
Sethasetha (Pepi I. 265)
Seththa (Pepi I. 259)
Shu (Unas 185)
1 Var.
Pepi I., 352.
2 He is identified with rlU Ij ° ^=^ % I ^ in Pepi II., 1320.
3 Var. [l^^PcO^.
GODS OF THE PYRAMID TEXTS
83
Shesmu (Unas 511)
rxn
r-^r-i
Sheskhentet (Unas 390) ^
Kenur (Pepi II. 979)
^
Kasut (Pepi 11. 975)
Qebhsennuf (Teta 60) 1 1|| k^
Tait (Teta 376) ^
Teba (Unas 428)
Tefen (Unas 453)
Tefnut (Unas 453)
Tern (Unas 207)
J^^
AAAA/V\
A/V\^AA
Tem-kheprer (Pepi II. 662)
Tatet (Unas 67) D
Tuamutef (Teta 60)
Tenanu (Pepi I. 269) ^v^AAAA q
Tenten (Unas 280)
Telmti (Unas 228)
Tchent (Mer-en-Ra 773) -^ ^
Tchenteru (Teta 198)
A^\AAA A/VWVV
Tchenttchenter (Pepi I. 301)
^
Besides the above gods are mentioned the " angel (or
messenger) of the two gods," y{ | | (Unas 408) ; and the " Ashem
that dwelleth within Aru," ^
^
[^£^^ (Teta 351).
Allusions are made to the following important stars
/WV\/iA
Nekhekh (Teta 218), ^^^ □
D ^
Septet (Teta 349), P /\ ^ ^, i.e., the Dog Star.
Sah (Teta 349), f1 ^ |^ ^ , i.e., Orion.
Sehut (Pepi 11. 857), [1|^.
The Pyramid Texts show that in addition to the gods already-
enumerated there existed certain classes of beings to whom were
attributed the nature of the gods, e.g. : —
The Afu (Pepi II. 951), —
The Utennu (Pepi II. 951),
AAAAAA
ODD
84 OTHER DIVINE BEINGS
The Urshu of Pe (Pepi 11. 849), ^ oa [S
The Urshu of Nekhen (Pepi II. 849), ^ oo p
The Henmemet (Unas 211), | /ww^ ^^^^ ^^"^ m ' •
The Set beings, superior and inferior, (Pepi II. 951),
P
^^^ '^ tk /I\
The Shemsu Heru (Pepi I. 166), ^ ^ ^
Of the functions of the Afu and Utennu nothing whatever is
known. The Urshu, i.e., the Watchers, of Pe and Nekhen may
have been groups of Avell-known gods, who Avere supposed to
" watch over " and specially protect these cities ; but, on the other
hand, they may only have been the messengers, or angels, of the
souls of Pe and Nekhen. The Henmemet beings are likewise a
class of divine beings about whom we have no exact information.
In certain texts they are mentioned in connection with gods and
men in such a manner that they are supposed to represent
" unborn generations," but this rendering will not suit many of the
passages in which the Avord occurs, and in those in which it seems
to do so many other hypothetical meanings would fit the context
just as well. The passage in which the Set beings are referred to
must belong to the period when the god Set was regarded as a
beneficent being and a god who was, with Horus, a friend and helper
of the dead. The text quoted above shows that, like Horus, Set
was supposed to be the head of a company of divine beings with
attributes and characteristics similar to those of himself, and that
this company was divided into two classes, the upper and the
lower, or perhaps even the celestial and the terrestrial. Last must
be mentioned the Shemsu Heru, or the "Followers of Horus," to
whom many references are made in funeral literature ; their
primary duties were to minister to the god Horus, son of Isis, but
they were also supposed to help him in the performance of the
duties which he undertook for the benefit of the dead. In the
religious literature of the Early Empire they occupy the place of
the "Mesniu, ' 0 1 .^^ ^ ^f ' > ^f Horus of Behutet, the modern
THE GOD OF FOUR FACES 85
Edfu, i.e., the workers in metal, or blacksmiths, who are supposed
to have accompanied this god into Egypt, and to have assisted him
by their weapons in establishing his supremacy at Behutet, or Edfu.
The exploits of this god will be described later on in the section
treating of Horus generally.
In the text of Pepi I. (line 419) Ave have a reference to a god
with four faces in the following words : — " Homage to thee, 0 thou
" who hast four faces which rest and look in turn upon what is in
" Kenset,^ and who bringest storm ! Grant thou unto this
" Pepi thy two fingers which thou hast given to the goddess Nefert,
" the daughter of the great god, as messenger fs] from heaven to
" earth when the gods make their appearance in heaven. Thou
" art endowed with a soul, and thou dost rise [like the sun] in thy
'' boat of seven hundred and seventy cubits.^ Thou hast carried in
" thy boat the gods of Pe, and thou hast made content the gods of
" the East. Carry thou this Pepi with thee in the cabin of thy
''boat, for this Pepi is the son of the Scarab which is born in
" Hetepet beneath the hair of the city of lusaas the northern, and
"he is the offspring of Seb. It is he who was between the legs of
" Khent-maati on the night wherein he guarded (?) bread, and on
" the night wherein he fashioned the heads of arrows. Thou hast
" taken thy spear which is dear to thee, thy pointed weapon which
" thrusteth down river banks, with a double point like the darts of
" Ra, and a double haft like the claws of the goddess Maftet."
Throughout the Pyramid Texts frequent mention is made of
one group, or of two or three groups, of nine gods. Thus in Unas
(line 179) we read of *' bowing low to the ground before the nine
gods," |p<c=:> =?^ ^ mniiTi' ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^'^ ^^^ **-*^^
that the king's bread consists of "the word^ of Seb which cometh
IJ ~ ~ ^-^ AAA/W\ •
1 U — H— P^-^"^
3 ^^ tchet means literally " word," but it often is used to express " thing,"
"matter," like the Hebrew 1^1.
86 PAUT OR SUBSTANCE OF THE GODS
forth from the mouth of the nine male gods," ^°^ ^^w^ ^^ J
''^^^"^ A.WWV I I I j] I II 1 JN^^^^v- '^^^ o^^ Seshaa, I rm "^^ 1] ,
is said in line 382 to have been " begotten by Seb and brought forth
by the nine gods," .> ] -\ h^J 1^^11111111,;
and in line 592 Ra is said to be the "chief of the nine gods,"
n '^^i^ O ? ll 11 M M T From several passages (e.g., Unas 251)
we learn that one company of nine gods was called the " Great,"
Tnmi M ^"^' ^^^ ^^^* another company was called the "Little,"
TmniTI ^^ ' ^^^^ ^^^® " ^^^® »^^^ ^^ Horns " are spoken
of side by side with "the gods," i„ p— IH 0^^ V
imnni i ^ '^ ^^^^^ ^'^^^' ^^^^* whether this group is to
be connected with the Great or Little company of gods cannot be
said. A double group of nine gods is frequently referred to, e.g.,
in Teta, line 67, where it is said, " The eighteen gods cense Teta,
and his .noutl. is P-e," ^ ^^ ^^^^1^^^=]=1^=]^=]=]=]^T (fi]
v:> J ; and in Pepi I., line 273, where we read that the
' two lips of Meri-Ra are the eighteen gods/' I cs::; f
© nn n K<N
mmnmmiin ' ^^^ again in Kne 407, Avhere Pepi I. is
said to be " with the eighteen gods in Qebhu," and to be the
" fashioner of the eighteen gods," | "^ 11111111111111lil1
kdil^(EEI°^1-^±111111111111111111.
We may jDerhaps assume that the eighteen gods include the Great
and the Little companies of the gods, but, on the other hand, as
"male and female gods" are mentioned"-^ in the text of Teta, nine
of the eighteen gods may be feminine counterparts of the other
nine, who must therefore be held to be masculine. But the texts
of Teta (line 307) and Pepi I. (line 218) show that there was a
third company of nine gods recognized by the priests of Helio-
1 Variant 0^0^; Teta, 1. 253.
1 I ve_i J /vwwN 1 I I J^ (=2) _Hi^ -> ^ ^ '
COMPANIES OF THE GODS 87
polisj and Ave find all three companies represented thus :
minniimnnnnimn-
The Egyptian word here rendered " company " is pauti or
pautj which may be written either D A^ v^ 1^ or ®, and the
meaning usually attached to it has been " nine." It is found in
texts subsequent to the period of the pyramids at Sakkara thus
written: — ^^ yj^f^ | | ' i^*^^*^ neteru, '^ jpciut of the gods"; the
double company of the gods is expressed by A^ '^^ vi> ^ 7^^ X r^
pautti, or we may have ^ \\\ ^„ ^ ...T ^^ ^^, paut neteru dat
paut neteru netcheset, i.e., "the Great company of gods and the
Little company of the gods." The fact that a company of gods is
represented by nine axes, | ll ] ]| | ||j ^^s led to the common
belief that a company of the gods contained nine gods, and for
this reason the word p)C(ut has been explained to mean " nine." It
is quite true that the Egyptians frequently assigned nine gods to
the paut, as we may see from such passages as Unas 235/ and
especially from line 283, where it is said, " Grant thou that
this Unas may rule the nine, and that he may complete the
company of the gods," A ^^^ (] ^ zl T f ^ [] f]] ° """§'4^ "
M Mil Mr But the last quoted passage proves that a. paut of
the gods might contain more than nine divine beings, for it is clear
that if the intent of the prayer was carried out the jxtut referred
to in it would contain ten, king Unas being added to the nine
gods. Again, in a litany to the gods of the Great company given
in the Unas text (line 240 ff.) we see that the paiit contains Tem,
Shu, Tefnutr-Seb, Nut, Isis, Set, Nephthys, Thoth, and Horus,
i.e., ten gods, without counting the deceased, who wished to be
added to the number of the gods. In the text of Mer-en-Ra
(line 205) the paut contains nine gods,^ and it is described as the
^^ <2>-
88 COMPANIES OF THE GODS
" Great jja?<^ which is in Annu" (Heliopolis), whilst in the text of
Pepi 11. (line 669) the same ]jaut is said to contain Tern, Shu,
Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Osiris-Khent-Amenti, Set, Horus, Ra,
Khent-maati, and Uatchet, i.e., tivelve gods. Similarly the gods of
the Little paut are more than nine in number, and in Unas (line
253 f.) they are thus enumerated : — Rat, , the dweller in Annu,
|l-|j- |£, the dweller in Antchet, ^°^7 ^^^^ dweller in Het-
Serqet, J ^ , the dweller in the divine palace, | Lj , the
dweller in Hetch-pafir, I A^ , the dweller in Orion, d, the
dweller in Tep, ^, the dweller in Het-ur-ka, ^ ^^^ 5^ ©> ttie
dweller in Unnu of the South, -^^ X , the dweller in Unnu of the
North, ^"^.
Thus the Little j;(X?t^ contained eleven gods, not counting the
deceased who desired to be added to their number. The fact that
the 2^cint contained at times more than nine gods is thus explained
by M. Maspero ^ : " The number nine was the original number,
" but each of the nine gods, especially the first and the last, could
" be developed." Thus if it was desired to add the god Amen of
the Theban triad to the jjaut of Heliopolis, he could be set at the
head of it either in the place of Temu, the legitimate chief of the
pant, or side by side with him. Mut, the consort of Amen, might
be included in the paut, but Amen and Mut would together only
count as one god. Similarly, any one or all of the gods who
belonged to the shrine of Amen could be included with that god
himself in the p)OAit of Heliopolis, and yet the number of that paut
was supposed to be increased only by one. In other words, the
admission of one god into a paut brought Avith it the admission of
all the gods who were in any way connected with him, but their
names were never included among those of the original members
of it. This explanation is very good as far as it goes, but it must
not be taken as a proof that the Egyptians argued in this manner,
or that they argued at all about it.
The nine axes 'l'1'l'l'l'l^'l'l ^'^^^> beyond doubt, intended to re-
1 La Myihologie ^gypticnne, p. 245.
SUBSTANCE OF THE GODS 89
present nine gods, i.e., a triad of triads, but the signs IH'I^^II'I
];)aut neteru, must be translated not " N^eunheit," as Brugsch
rendered tliem,^ but the " stuff of the nine gods," i.e., the substance
or matter out of which the nine gods were made. Tlie word paut,
/5^ \\ ^ . ^ , means " douo;h cake," or cake of bread which
formed part of the offerings made to the dead ; similarly paut is
the name given to the plastic substance out of which the earth and
the gods were formed, and later, when applied to divine beings or
things, it means the aggregation or entirety of such beings or
things. Thus in the PajDyrus of Ani (sheet i., line 6) the god
Tatunen is declared to be " one, the maker of mankind, and of the
" material of the gods of the South and the North, the West and
"the East."^ But there was a primeval matter out of which
heaven was made, and also a [primeval] matter out of which the
earth was made, and hence Khepera, the great creator of all
things, is said in Chapter xvii. (line 116) of the Book of the Dead to
possess a body^ which is formed of both classes of matter (pant).
And again in Chapter Ixxxv. (line 8) the deceased, wishing to
identify himself with this divine substance, says, " I am the eldest
" son of the divine pautti, that is to say, the soul of the souls of the
" gods of everlasting, and my body is everlasting, and my creations are
" eternal, and I am the lord of years, and the prince of everlasting-
" ness." In the words which are put into the mouth of Khepera,
who is made to describe his creation of the world, the god says,
'' I produced myself from the [primeval] matter [which] I made,"
1 " Der kosmogonisclie Lehre von der Ogdoas, deren aelteste Spuren sich bis
" zu den Pyramidentexten verfolgen lassen, scUoss sick die Doctrin ' der Neunheit '
0 C3
" (Enneas) oder der ] an. Sie umfasste die genetiscbe Entstehiing der neun
" Theile und Kriifte, welche die zukiinftige Wohnung der den Leib Gottes bildeten,
" dessen Seele davon Besitz nabm, um alles niit ihr zu erfullen." Aegyptologie,
p. 170.
ir S^ _ii v^-B^Jr ^j 1 ^ Mix
90 THREE COMPANIES OF THE GODS
-<9 ^ -fl www p> -« ^ ^ P ft 6?\ I r^ /w^AA^
^_k I 1^ ^m^^^l ^ I '' tliis is the only mean-
iDg which can be extracted from the Egyptian words, and the
context, which the reader will find given in the section on the
Creation, proves that it is the correct one. The word " primeval,"
which is added in brackets, is suggested by the texts wherein
pautti is accompanied by ^ ^e^;, i.e., "first," in point of time,
compare ^^ "^ ^ ^ ^ e ^ I ^^^ " first matter," that is to say,
the earliest matter which was created, and the matter which
existed before anything else. From the above facts it is clear
that the meaning " Neunheit " must not be given to the Egyptian
word ipaui.
We have now seen that, so far back as the Vth Dynasty, the
priests of Heliopolis conceived the existence of three companies of
gods ; the first two they distinguished by the appellations " Great "
and " Little," but to the third they gave no name. The gods of the
first or " Great " company are well known, and their names are : —
1 . Tem, the form of the Sun-god which was worshipped at Heliopolis.
2. Shu. 3. Tefnut. 4. Seb. 5. Nut. 6. Osiris. 7. Isis. 8. Set.
9. Nephthys. Sometimes this company is formed by the addition
of Horus and the omission of Tem. The names of gods of the second
or " Little " company appear to be given in the text of Unas,
line 253 fi"., where we have enumerated : — 1. Rat. 2. Am-Annu.
3. Am-Antchet. 4. Am-Het-Serqet-ka-hetepet. 5. Am-Neter-liet.
6. Am-Hetch-paar. 7. Am-Sali. 8. Am-Tep. 9. Am-Het-ur-
Ra. 10. Am-TJnnu-resu. 11. Am-Unnu-meht. It must, how-
ever, be noted that whereas in the text the address to the Great
company of the gods as a whole follows the separate addresses to
each, the address to the Little company precedes the separate
addresses to each ; still there is no reason for doubting that the
second group of names given above are really those of the Little
company of the gods. The names of the gods of the third company
are unknown, and the texts are silent as to the functions which the
company was supposed to perform ; the Great and Little companies
of the gods are frequently referred to in texts of all periods, but
1 See Archaeologia, vol. Hi., p. 557.
2 See my Chajiters of Coming Forth by Day, Text, p. 348, 1. 15.
THREE COMPANIES OF THE GODS 91
the third company is rarely mentioned. Thus in the text of
Pepi I. (Hne 43), the king is said to sit on an iron throne and to
weigh words at the head of the Great company of gods in Annu ; the
two companies of the gods lift up the head of Pepi (line 97), and he
takes the crown in the presence of the Great company (line 117) ;
he sits at the head of the two companies (line 167), and in their boat
(line 169) ; and he stands between the two companies (line 186).
It has already been suggested ^ that the Great company of gods was
a macrocosm of a primitive kind, and the Little company a micro-
cosm ; this view is very probably correct, and is supported by
passages like the following : — " The son of his father is come with
" the company of the gods of heaven, . . . the son of his father is
" come with the company of the gods of earth."
IkI ^1 ^^ Z ^ 111111111 IT ^
fl^fll^lZ^ 111111111 tlT-'
From numerous passages in texts of all periods it is clear
that the Egyptians believed that heaven was in many respects a
duplicate of earth, and, as it was supposed to contain a celestial
Nile, and sacred cities which were counterparts of those on the
earth and which were called by similar names, it is only reasonable
to assign to it a company of gods who were the counterparts of
those on earth. And as there were gods of heaven and gods of
earth, so also were there gods of the Tuat, or Underworld, who
were either called tuat, ^ Jj i, or ^%. ^^wj '» o^' neteru
en tuat, "I^T 3 i /wwvv ® . This being so, we may assume that
when the writers of the Pyramid Texts mentioned three companies
of the gods, 111111111111111111111111111, they referred
to the company of the gods of heaven, the company of
the gods of earth, and the company of the gods of the Under-
world, meaning thereby what the writer of the XXIIIrd
Chapter of the Booh of the Bead meant when he spoke of "the
^ Maspero, La Mythologie Mgyptienne, p. 244.
3 Pepi I., 11. 298-300.
92 THREE COMPANIES OF THE GODS
"company of all the gods," ® ^ ^ j ^^ '^^ (]() ^ ^ j- ^^
the Pyramid Texts, however, and in the later Recensions of the
Book of the Dead which are based upon them, the pautti neteru,
111111111111111111' -A 111111' -- -*-^i-^ *° -
present the Great and Little companies of the gods, and these only ;
the members of each company varied in different cities and in
different periods, but the principle of such variation is com-
paratively simple. Long before the priests of Heliopolis grouped
the gods of Egypt into companies certain very ancient cities had
their own special gods whom they probably inherited from their
predecessors, i.e., the predynastic Egyptians. Thus the goddess
of Sai's was Nit, or Net, or Neith ; the goddess of Per-Uatchet was
Uatchet ; the goddess of Dendera was Hathor ; the goddess of
Nekheb was Nekhebet ; the god of Edfii was Horus ; the god of
Heliopolis was Tem ; and so on. When the priests of these and
other cities found that, for some reason, they were obliged to
accept the theological system formulated by the priests of Helio-
polis and its Great company of gods, they did so readily enough,
but they always made the great local god or goddess the head or
chief, p W , of the company.
At Heliopolis, where the chief local god was called Tem, the
priests joined their god to Ra, and addressed many of their prayers
and hymns to Tem-Ra or Rii-Tem. At Edfu the great local god
Horus of Behutet was either made to take the place of Tem, or was
added to the Heliopolitan company in one form or another. The
same thing happened in the case of goddesses like Neith, Uatchet,
Nekhebet, Hathor, etc. It was found to be hopeless to attempt to
substitute the Heliopolitan company of gods for Neith in the city
of Sais, because there the worship of that goddess was extremely
ancient and was very important. The fact that her name forms a
component part of royal names very early in the 1st Dynasty proves
that her worship dates from the first half of the archaic period, and
that it is much older than the theological system of Heliopolis.
But when the priests of Sa'is adopted that system they associated
her with the head of the company of the gods, and gave her
THE COMPANIES OF THE GODS 93
suitable titles and ascribed to her proper attributes, in accordance
with her sex, which would make her a feminine counterpart to the
god Tern. The god Tern was the Father-god, and the lord of
heaven, and the begetter of the gods, therefore Neith became " the
" great lady, the mother-goddess, the lady of heaven, and queen of
'' the gods," ^ 1 ^ ^ ^=^ I ^ ^"j"]- Elsewhere^ she is called
"mother of the gods," and just as Tem was declared to have been
self-produced, so we find the same attribute ascribed to Neith, and
she is said to be "the great lady, who gave birth to Ra, who
" brought forth in primeval time herself, never having been
"created,"^ ^ 5^(11|I|M-^ fH M ^ -^ W id I'' ^'^^
same thing happened at the cities of Per-Uatchet in the Delta and
Nekhebet in Upper Egypt, for at one place Uatchet, the ancient
and local goddess, became the head of the company of gods,
and the goddess Nekhebet at the other. It is interesting to note
that the priests of Heliopolis themselves included Uatchet in their
Great company of the gods, as we may see from the text of
Pepi 11.,^ where we find that the deceased king prays concerning
the welfare of his pyramid " to the great j;(X?i!^ of gods in Annu,"
i.e., Tem, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris, Set, Nephthys, Khent-
Maati, and Uatchet.
The goddess Hathor at Dendera was treated by the priests
there as was Neith at Sa'is, for every conceivable attribute was
ascribed to her, and her devotees declared that she was the mother
of the gods, and the creator of the heavens and the earth, and of
everything which is in them. In fact, both Neith and Hathor
were made to assume all the powers of the god Tem, and indeed of
every solar god.
The general evidence derived from a study of texts of all
periods shows that the chief local gods of many cities never lost
their exalted positions in the minds of the inhabitants, who clung
to their belief in them with a consistency and conservatism which
are truly Egyptian. In fact, the god of a nome, or the god of the
1 D. Mallet, Le Culte de Neit a Sais, Paris, 1888, p. 47.
3 Ibid., p. 146. 3 See 11. 669 S.
94 LOCAL GODS
capital city of a nome, when once firmly established, seems to have
maintained his influence in all periods of Egyptian history, and
though his shrine may have fallen into oblivion as the result of
wars or invasions, and his worship have been suspended from time
to time, the people of his city always took the earliest opportunity
of rebuilding his sanctuary and establishing his priests as soon as
prosperity returned to the country.
( 95 )
CHAPTER III
PRIMITIVE GODS AND NOME-GODS
DURING- the predynastic period in Egypt every village and
town or settlement possessed its god, whose worship and
the glory of whose shrine increased or declined according to the
increase or decrease of the prosperity of the community in which
he lived. When the country was divided into sections which the
Egyptians called hespu, fi 1 n ^ |^ , or " nomes," a certain god, or
group of allied gods, became the representative, or representatives,
of each nome, and so obtained the pre-eminence over all the other
gods of the nome ; and sometimes one god would represent two
nomes. In this way the whole country of Egypt, from the Medi-
terranean Sea to Elephantine, was divided among the gods, and it
became customary in each nome to regard the god of that nome as
the " Great God," or " God," and to endow him with all the powers
and attributes possible. We have, unfortunately, no means of
knowing when the country was first split up into nomes, but the
division must have taken place at a very early period, and the gods
who were chosen to represent the nomes were undoubtedly those
who had been worshipped in the large towns or settlements during
the predynastic period. Thus in the earliest dynastic times of
which we have inscriptions of any length we find that Neith was the
chief deity of Sais, Osiris of Busiris, Thoth of Hermopolis, Uatchet
of Per-Uatchet, Ptah of Memphis, Sebek of Crocodilopolis, Amen of
Thebes, Nekhebet of Nekheb, and Khnemu of Elephantine. The
number of the nomes seems to have been different in different
periods, so it is not possible to say with certainty how many the
early nome-gods were in number. The Egyptian lists give the
number of nomes as forty-two or forty-four, but the classical writers,
96 NOME-GODS
Strabo, Diodorus, and Pliny, do not agree in their statements on
the subject. Strabo says ^ that the Labyrinth contained twenty-
seven chambers, and if each one represented a nome the nomes
must have been twenty-seven in number, i.e., ten in Upper Egypt,
ten in Lower Egypt, and seven in the Heptanomis. On the other
hand, Herodotus says ^ that the Labyrinth contained twelve halls.
Pliny (Bk. v., chap. 9) enumerates the nomes as follows: —
Ombites, Apollopolites, Hermonthites, Thinites, Phaturites, Copt-
iteSjTentyrites, Diopolites, Antaeopolites, Aphroditopolites, Lycopo-
lites, Pharbaethites, Bubastites, Sethroites, Tanites, the Arabian
nome, the Hammonian nome, Oxyrynchites, Leontopolites, Athri-
bites, Cynopolites, Hermopolites, Xoites, Mendesium, Sebennytes,
Cabasites, Latopolites, Heliopolites, Prosopites, Panopolites, Busi-
rites, Onuphites, Saites, Ptenethu, Phthemphu, Naucratites, Mete-
lites, Grynaeopolites, Menelaites, Maraeotis, Heracleopolites, Arsino-
ites, Memphites, and the two nomes of Oasites. Diodorus Siculus
(i. 54) gives the number of the nomes as thirty-six ; ^ Herodotus
(ii. 164) tells us that the country of Egypt was divided into
districts ^ or nomes, but he does not say how many of them there
were. These facts serve to show that the number of nomes when
the country was first divided was smaller than in later times, and
we may assume that it was the nomes of the Delta which increased
in number rather than those of Upper Egypt. The following is a
list of the nomes of Egypt according to inscriptions at EdfCi and
elsewhere, together with their capitals and the gods who were
worshipped in them : —
UPPER EGYPT.
Nome. Capital. God.
L Ta-khent ^ Abu ? O J c=£^ Khnemu Q % J
(Elephantine)
2. Thes- J^® Teb ^ J© Heru-Behutet
Hertu "^^
mp (ApollinopolisMagna)
1 xvii. 1. § 37. 2 ii. § 148.
^ Tryv Sf x^^P°^^ uTrao-av ei's £t ^at rpiaKOVTa jxeprj SteXojv, a KaXovaiv AiyvVrtoi vo/xovs.
^ Kara -yap 8r; voyuovs AlyvTTTOs airaaa SiapaLprjTai.
Nome.
NOME-GODS
Capital.
97
God.
3. Ten
M
Nekheb:].0j; Nekhebet:|.oJ;^
(Eileithyia)
Senit ^'^^^^ © (Esneh)
w ^
4. Uast f Uast f " (Thebes) Amen-Ra h
i""*^ o
-T
5. Herui
6. Aa-ta
nr
(Coptos)
Amsu, Min or ^oa^
Khem T
Ta-en- =^??= =??^ <=> Het-Heru no -q
tarert Lv^ I 3s^~© {i.e.,Hathor) lilno q
(Denderah)
7. Seshesh ^Xr- ^^^
ittth (Diospolis Parva)
Het-Heru Qn^l
8. Abt TV
AbtufJ'^' An-Heij£^i|
(Abydos)
Thenit aaaaaa ] ^ (This)
9. Amsu Min J^ Apu (1 D ^ © Amsu, Min or ^
or IvHEM -"^ ^ 1 Ji Khem r
(Panopolis)
10a. Uatchet Vp:, Tebut g^gl Het-Heru [
n^o
(Aphroditopolis)
10b. Neteeui JI Tu-qat . T ^ Heru (Horus)
(Antaeopolis)
11. Set ?
Shas-
hetep
Khnemu
5
(Hypsele)
^ Var. tfS) ^^^ Ah-tut, i.e., "the city of the mountain of the heart's desire"; see
^ o © • ' •'
Dum.icheii, Geschichte, p. 143.
98 NOME-GODS
Nome. Capital. God
12 T„.^ ^ Nut-en- © O -^ K Hem ^
(Antaeopolis)
Saiut
13. Atee- Vji __1^1K QAtk- Ap-uat V-JI
(Lycopolis)
?fFFF
15. Un .^. Khemennu ' ' ' ' £ Tehuti (Thoth)
^^^p MM© • ^ ^
(Hermopolis)
16. Meh- j^ Hebenuuno Heru ^
MAHETCH 42^ ' A ^ ^ -He
TOTF (Hipponon)
/\^/v^\
17. Anpu ^;^ Kasa ^5^^ Anpu
nil) ' ®
(Cynopolis)
18. Sep ^ «^t-^'it«'iQni Jl® '^°P" i □
^^ (Alabastronpolis)
. n. Per-Matchet
19- UabIJI T^^© ^^*^
(Oxyrynchus)
20. Atee- i)ff^ Henensu 1 ^= Her-shefi ^ ™|](1^
(Herakleopolis Magna)
21 A. Atef- 0.=^ Ermen
'- V^ r.rmen- <^ ^ Khnemu fj ^
PEHU ^7f~ hert r^^^ .-r-.^. ^ © u Ji)%
2lB. Ta-she ^=^" " Shet ^^Z Sebek fl ]| ^=^
(Crocodilopolis)
22. Maten ^ Tep-ahet ^^Z Het-Hert [j ^ ^ |
'.Hill
(Apliroditopolis)
NOME-GODS 99
LOWER EGYPT.
Nome. Capital. God.
1 . Aneb
Men- i"^^^^ t H-=-- ^
HETCH ^" neiert a/wwv o <=> © • -^^ A iii
^ (Memphis)
2. Khensu^ ^ Sek'hemt "T |\ ^ Hem-ur '^ ^
(Letopolis)
^^ (Apis)
4. Sapi-res <^^l3i^ Tclieqa 1 _ Sebek, Isis, Amen
TFfFF
5. Sap-meh ^¥ Saut 1^ %. ^ Z ^'^t (Neith) ^
™e (Sais)
6. Kaset '^S Khasut T P % @ Amen-Ra [] ^vw^
(aois)
. <'>
TTTTT neiert ^ w 56 o ^ ©
8. ...xiBT^^^ Theket ^^" Temu "
(Succoth)
Per- cnn n ^ ^
Atem 1
(Pitliom)
9. Ati^ Per.Asar^JI;^ Osiris J|
^ (Busiris)
' Perhaps a variant is ^ = Q 1 ^ = ^ '^^^ ^ ' ^^® ■^^®^^^''' ^^^- ^''''•
). 17 ; and D
1868, p. 17 ; and Diimiclien, Kalendariiischriftea, 1186, 106'cZ
100 NOME-GODS
Nome. Capital. God.
10. Ka-qem^^ • her-ab U lt^: ^O © Horns ^ ^
^ (Athribis)
11. Ka-heseb S^ Hebes-ka y[l5^^ ^^^^ j ^ I
^ (Cabasus)
12. Theb.^^ ^,^^,^^^^^^^.^«. A.-he.J^|
^ (Sebennytus)
13. Heq-at Jj_ Annu |l g Ra
o
^ (Heliopolis, On)
14. Khent-abt ((IhT Tehaln^-^^ Hi Hern
(Tanis)
15. Tehut ^ Per-Tehuti "^^ Telmti (Thoth) ^
^ (Hermopolis)
^ Per-ba-neb-Tettn Ba-neb-
16. Kha(?) 2 "^^^-^^1 Tattu,or.^^^fl
^ (Mendes) * •" "
TT ^ . Pa-khen-en-iVmen
17. Sam- |^ 1^ = fl S Amen-Raft ™
BEHUTET MT Uyh .wwva ^ ^ © 1 O I
^ (Diospolis)
18. Am-khent J__. Per-Bast ""Y^^^© Bast ^ ^ i)
^^ (Bubastis)
19. Am-pehu r-^ Per-Uatcliet'=Y^|^| Uatcliet|^|
^ (Bnto)
20. SeptA^ Qesem _6_ |x^ © Sept^J^I^'
™^ (Goshen ?)
1 The authorities to be consulted on the nomes of Egypt are Brugsch, Diet. Gcog.
(see the list at the end of vol. iii.) ; Diimichen, Geographic des alt en Aegyptens (in
Meyer, GescUclite des alien Aegyptens), Berlin, 1887 ; and J. de Rouge, Gtograpliie
Ancienne de la Basse-lSgypte, Paris, 1891.
NOME-GODS
101
Thus every nome of Egypt possessed a representative god
whose temple was situated in the capital city of the nome, and
attached to the service of each nome-god was a body of priests who
divided among themselves the various duties connected with the
service of the gods, the maintenance of the buildings of the temple,
the multiplying of copies of religious works, and the religious
education of the community. In Upper Egypt, where the care of
the dead seems to have been the principal duty of the living, the
lower orders of the priesthood probably carried on a lucrative
business in mummifying the dead, and in funeral papyri and
amulets, and in conducting funerals. The high-priest of each
great city, and sometimes even the high-priestess, bore a special
title. In Thebes the high-priest was called " first servant of the
" god Ra in Thebes "; Mn Heliopolis the title of the high-priest was
"Great one of visions of Ra-Atem" ;^ in Memphis, "Great chief
" of the hammer in the temple of him of the Southern Wall, and
'' Setem of the god of the Beautiful Face (i.e., Ptah) " ; ^ in Sais,
" governor of the double temple " ; ^ and similarly the high-priestess
of Memphis bore the title of " Nefer-tutu " ; ^ in Sekhem the title
of the high-priestess was " Divine mother";^ in Sai's, " Urt," i.e.,
"great one";'' in Mendes, " Utcha-ba-f " ; ^ and so on. The
priests of every great god were divided into classes, among
which may be mentioned " those who ministered at certain hours,"
-^W ™ ^ ; " the servants of the gods," "] f ^ j ; the " holy
lathers, Ml ^f ' 5 the " libationers, /"^ aaaa/v. ^ \ . The
accounts of the temple were kept by the "scribe of the temple,"
'Of
^
1.
^
1
102 NOME-GODS
1
, and, in large temples, one or more scribes kept a
register of gifts to the temple and of the property of the god.^
It is impossible to say how many priests of all classes ministered to
any given nome-god ; it seems that the highest permanent priestly
officials were at all times and in all cities very few in number, and
that the " servants of the god " were very many. The priests of
each nome-god were subject to no external authority, and the high-
priest of a great nome possessed a power which was hardly inferior
to that of the nomarch himself.
The worship of each nome-god contained elements peculiar to
itself, and the beliefs which centred in him represented all the
ancient and indigenous views of the inhabitants of the nome, and
these were carefully observed and cultivated from the earliest to
the latest times. We may see from the list of nome-gods given
above that many nomes worshipped the same god, e.g., Horus was
worshipped in three nomes of UpjDer Egypt and two nomes of
Lower Egypt, whilst one nome worshipped him under the special
form of Horus of Behutet; three nomes of Upper Egypt worshipped
Khnemu, two worshipped Amsu (or Min or Khem ?), two worshipped
An]Du, and Hathor was worshipped in five nomes in Upper Egypt
and one in Lower Egypt. The cults of the ram-headed god Khnemu
at Elephantine, of the vulture goddess Nekhebet at Eileithyia, of the
crocodile god Sebek in the district of Ta-she (Fayyum), of the dog-
headed god Anpu at Cynopolis and Alabastronpolis, of the ibis-god
Thotli at Hermopolis, of Horus the elder (Heru-ur) at Letopolis,
and of Uatchet at Buto (Per-Uatchet), were extremely ancient, and
with them are probably to be grouped in point of antiquity the
cults of the wolf (?) -headed god Ap-uat, the lioness goddess Sekhet,
the cat-headed goddess Bast, and the god Set. The animal which
was the type and symbol of this last god has not as yet been
identified ; it cannot have been the ass as was once thought, and it
is hardly likely to have been the camel ; at 2Dresent, therefore, we
can only tentatively assume that it belonged to some class of animal
which became extinct at a very early period. The cults of the
various forms of the sky-god Horus, and of the Sun-god, and of the
1 For otlier temj-tle officials see Brugsch, Aegiji)tolo<jie, p. 218.
OSIRIS 103
goddess Hathor, are the oldest of all. The goddess Neith, whose
symbols were two arrows and a shield, appears to have been of
Libyan origin, but, as has already been shown, the attributes of
some of the oldest indigenous gods of Egypt were ascribed to her
in early dynastic times. The origin of the god Osiris is obscure,
but it is difficult, when all the statements made concerning him in
the relio;ious texts are taken into consideration, not to think that
the original seat of his worship was in the Delta. Early in the
dynastic period his most important shrine was at Abydos, which
became the centre of his cult and the sacred city to which his
worshippers flocked for countless generations. In spite of this,
however, the nome-lists show that the nome-god was An- Her, or
Anhur, and notwithstanding the special honour in which Osiris
was held throughout Egypt, i^n-Her was always regarded as the
official god of the nome Abt and of its capital of the same name.
The Elysian Fields, i.e., the Sekhet-hetepet, were situated
in the Delta where the country was fertile, and where the
land was traversed by canals and streams of water running in
all directions; moreover, the "House of Osiris" jpar excellence
\ rlJl S Psr-Asar ^ = Busiris J was in the Delta, and the shrine
of the god who was worshipped in the form of a ram which
was said to contain the soul of Osiris, was also in the Delta.
Everywhere in the texts Osiris is called the " lord of Abydos,"
and generally this title is followed by another, i.e., " lord of
Tattu." Now Tattu is the city, and " The Ram, lord of Tattu,"
^"^i^^ ^3:7 nf ^ Ba-neb- Tattu, was its god. The name Tattu was
" y> yj [All & ... 7 o ...
corrupted into " Mendes " by the Greeks, and in this city the great
local god was worshipped under the form of a ram, which is now
commonly known as the " Mendesian Ram." The frequent use of
the title "lord of Tattu" suggests that the worship of Osiris was
grafted on to or was made to absorb that of the local ram-god, and
that in consequence Osiris became the lord of the city in his stead.
It may be urged that Tattu was merely the seat of the shrine of
the god Osiris in the northern kingdom, just as Abydos was his
1 The words Ba-neb- Tattu usually follow here, therefore the full name of the
city is, "House of Osiris, the Ram, lord of Tattu."
104 AMEN AND ATEN
sanctuary in the southern kingdom, but this explanation of the use
of the title is insufficient. It may further be urged that, inasmuch
as the titles " lord of Abydos," " lord of Tattu," occur in connection
with others which have reference to Osiris in his capacity as
governor of the Underworld, the Abydos and Tattu here mentioned
are mythological cities and not cities upon earth. But even if
this be so it matters little, for we know that the Egyptians fashioned
their mythological or heavenly cities after the manner of their
earthly cities, and that their conceptions of things spiritual were
based upon things material.
Returning for a moment to the adoption of gods, Ave may note
that from first to last the peoj^le of one nome were generally ready
to offer hospitality to the gods of another, and also to the gods of
strangers who had come to settle among them. At times, however,
a new god, or a new group of gods, was forced upon the inhabitants
of one or more nomes, and even upon a whole j)rovince, as the result
of conquest, or by the wish of the king, or by the supremacy of the
priesthood of a given city. Thus the priesthood of Ra or Ra-Tem
at Heliopolis succeeded in making their theological system para-
mount in the country, and the whole of the religious philosophy of
the Theban Boohs of the Dead is based upon their teaching. Until
the conquest of the Hyksos by the Theban princes the god Amen
was a nome-god of no great importance, but when they became
kings of the south and north, he immediately became the king of
all the gods of the south and the north, and the titles and powers
and attributes of the great gods of the country were ascribed to
him by his priests. As the prince of Thebes Avas greater than any
and every prince in the other nomes of Egypt, so the Theban nome-
god Avas greater than any and every other god of Egypt. The
extraordinary dislike Avhich Amen-hetep IV. exhibited towards
this god, and the foolish attempt Avhich he made to substitute for
his worship that of Aten, or the Disk, furnishes us Avith an example
of the imposition of a god upon a priesthood and province ; the
attempt Avas successful for a time over a limited area, but it had no
chance of permanent success because the fundamental ideas of the
worship of the god as Amen-hetep interpreted them Avere foreign
to the religious conceptions of the Egyjotians generally.
RA AND AMEN 105
From what lias been said above it will be easy to imagine
the remarkable spectacle which Egypt must have presented to a
foreigner who went there and found the country split up into a
series of nomes, each possessing its great god, who was ministered
to by a body of priests and servants who were amenable to no general
authority outside the nome, and who performed his worship when
and as they jDleased, and who claimed for him powers, and rights,
and privileges without fear of opposition. The stranger would find
that each college of priests in each nome asserted that its god
was the father of all the other gods, and the creator of the heavens
and the earth, and that, generally speaking, the priests of one
nome-god and his divine companions were content to allow their
neighbours in other nomes to declare anything they pleased about
their nome-gods and their divine companions. As far as can be
gathered from the religious texts, it seems that the priests of one
company of gods never attempted to suppress the gods of another
company if the fortune of war gave them paramount power in the
nome wherein they were worshipped. Thus when the priests of
Ra attained to the great power which they enjoyed at Heliopolis
under the Vth and Vlth Dynasties they did not suppress the local
god Tem, but they associated their god with him, and produced the
compound god Ra-Tem. Similarly, at a later period, when Amen, as
the nome-god of the victorious princes and kings of Thebes, was
declared to be the greatest of the gods of Egypt, his priests did not
declare that the other gods of Egypt were not gods and try to
suppress them, but they asserted that all the powers of the other
gods were assimilated in him, and that he was in consequence the
greatest of the gods. In the texts of Unas and the kings who were
his immediate successors we read of the Great and Little companies
of the gods, but we also find mention of the company of gods of
Horus and of the double company of gods of Tem ; ^ the j)riests of
Heliopolis claimed supremacy among the gods for Ra, but they
took care to include as far as possible the name of every god and
goddess to whom worship had been paid in past generations. The
°^^^imiinixkmmiimninni
Unas, 11. 443, 444.
106 GODS OF HELIOPOLIS
same characteristic is observable in the texts of the Theban priest-
hood, and we find that their god Amen was even introduced into the
Booh of the Dead where, manifestly, he had little claim to be. The
hymns in the chapters of that work are addressed either to Ra, in
one form or another, or to Osiris, but in Chapter clxxi. we find
the following address :— '' 0 Tem, 0 Shu, 0 Tefnet, 0 Seb, 0 Nut,
"0 Osiris, 0 Isis, 0 Set, 0 Nephthys, 0 Heru-khuti (Harmachis),
" 0 Hathor of the Great House, 0 Khepera, 0 Menthu, the lord of
'' Thebes, 0 Amen, the lord of the thrones of the two lands, 0
" Great company of the gods, 0 Little company of the gods, 0 gods
"and goddesses who dwell in Nu, 0 Sebek of the two Meht, 0
" Sebek in all thy manifold names in thine every j^lace wherein thy
" Ka (i.e., double) hath delight, 0 gods of the south, 0 gods of the
" north, 0 ye who are in heaven, 0 ye who are upon the earth,
" grant ye the garment of purity unto the perfect spirit of iVmen-
" hetep." ^ The greater number of the gods Avhose names are given
in the Pyramid Texts are also mentioned in the religious literature,
especially in the Booh of the Dead of later periods, and if we pos-
sessed copies of all the religious works of the New Empire we should
probably discover that the names of all the gods, Avith perhaps the
exception of Set, worshipped under the Early Empire were pre-
served in them. The Egyptians, certainly in dynastic times, rarely
abandoned a god, and, speaking generally, it is remarkable how
little the character and attributes of the gods vary in the period
between the IVth and the XXVIth Dynasties. The obstinate
conservatism of the Egyptians, which seems to have been inherited
in an almost unaltered state by their descendants the Copts, induced
the writers of religious texts to introduce into their works as many
of the gods as possible, and they were moved to do this as much by
motives of priestly policy and by self-interest as by feelings of
reverence for the gods of Egy23t.
In the Pyramid Texts the predominant gods are those of the
company of Heliopolis, but we nevertheless find that the gods
of remote towns and cities had duties assigned to them, and that
one and all of them were supposed to minister to the deceased
kings in the Underworld. The reason of this is not far to seek.
1 See my Chaj^fers of Coming Forth by Day (Trtinslation), p. 315.
SUBDIVISIONS OF HEAVEN 107
The heaven which the Egyptian conceived in his mind closely
resembled Egypt in respect of its sub-divisions, and its various
cities and districts were ruled by gods whom it was necessary to
propitiate, and whose friendship must be gained at any cost. A
man hoped that in the next life he would be able to wander about
at will through the length and breadth of heaven, and the only
way to obtain this privilege was to secure the goodwill of the
gods of the four quarters of the sky by the recital of prayers of
various kinds, and by the performance of certain ceremonies,
which were always of a more or less magical character. To be
able to pass at pleasure along the eastern Delta of heaven and
without opposition presupposed the favour of Sept and Temu ;
and to have power to drink of the waters of the celestial Nile
presupposed the favour of the god Khnemu, the lord of the Island
of Elephantine, close to which were situated, according to Egyp-
tian belief, the sources of the Nile. The texts of all periods
exhibit an almost childish anxiety to prove that every god of
Egypt is interested in the welfare of the beings in the Underworld
who were once mortal men, and it was a common belief also in all
periods that the mere asserting in writing that the gods would
minister to the deceased would produce the assistance desired. To
enjoy the power to enter into certain cities in heaven the deceased
was obliged to know the various gods or " Souls " who were
worshipped in them. Thus the Souls of the West were Tem, and
Sebek, the lord of the Mountain of Sunrise, and Hathor, the
lady of the Evening ; ^ the Souls of the East were Heru-khuti
(Harmachis), the Calf of the goddess Khera, and the Morning
Star ; " the Souls of the city of Pe were Horus, Mestha, and
H api ; "^ the Souls of the city of Nekhen were Horus, Tuamutef,
and Qebhsennuf ; ^ the Souls of Heliopolis were Ra, Shu, and
Tefnet ; '" and the Souls of the city of Hermopolis were Thoth,
Sa, and Tem.*' Similarly every great heavenly city was held to
contain a company of gods, and the beatified soul was thought
to enjoy the duty of paying visits to their shrines just as, when
in the body, it made offerings to their earthly counterparts.
1 Booh of the Dead, Chap, cviii. ^ IMd,^ Chap. cix. s J^^V?., Chap. cxii.
* Ibid., Chap, cxiii. ^ Ibid., Chap. cxv. ^ Ibid., Chap. cxvi.
108 DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD
In the observations already made concerning the difficulty of
assigning an exact meaning to the word for God and " god," neter,
^ |, we have seen that in dynastic times the chief attribute
which was assigned to a god was the power to renew his life
indefinitely, and to live for ever, and the text of Unas has shown
us that in very early times the Egyptian thought he could obtain
this power by eating his god or gods. Closely connected with this
belief is another which finds expression in the Pyramid Texts, and
also in the later Recensions of the Booh of the Dead which are
based upon them. In many passages scattered throughout the
religious texts of all periods we find it stated that the deceased
has acquired the powers of such and such a god, and that as a
result he has become the counterpart or fellow of several gods, and
that he takes his place among the company of gods in the proper
persons of several of their number. A still further development
of the idea makes every member of the body of the deceased to be,
first, under the protection of a god, and secondly, to become that
same member of the god its protector ; hence his whole body
becomes the "double company of the gods," and the "two great
" gods watch, each in his place, and they find him in the form of
" the double company of the gods weighing the words of every
" chief like a chief, and they bow down before him, and they make
"offerings to him as to the double company of the gods." ^ More-
over, the deceased is made in the texts to stand up at the head of
the company of the gods as Seb, the " erpa," or hereditary chief,
of the gods, and as Osiris, the governor of the divine powers, and
as Horus, the lord of men and of gods.^ His bones are the gods
1 See Pepi I., 11. 317, 318. <z=> H ) "11 ^-^ '^ %\ ^ """^^ fl /www
'^k [>- ^^ k innnmminii' t's ii
niiniiiinnnii.
= ^-ininmwiP2inj-qpi^
^ip^ -^niT p«Fi-.i-i«6.
IJEIFICATION OF THE DEAD 109
and goddesses of heaven ; ^ his right side belongs to Horus, and
his left side to Set; he becomes the actual son of Tern, or Tem-Ra,
and Shu, Tefnet, Seb, and Nut, and he is the brother of Isis,
Nephthys, Set, and Thoth, and the father of Horus.^ The god
Horus taketh his own Eye and giveth it to him,^ and he bestoweth
upon him his own ha or double,^ and never leaveth him, and
the Bull of the JSTine ^ maketh wide his dominions among
the gods.
The oldest copy of the prayer for the deification of the
members of the body is found in the text of Pepi I. (line 565 ff.),
and as it is very important from several points of view a version
of it is here given : — " The head of this Ra-meri is in the form
of [that of] the hawk ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in
heaven. The skull, ■^ v^ @ , of this Pepi is that of the divine
Goose ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The
[hair] of this Pepi is the .... ^"^^^ of Nu ; he cometh forth
and raiseth himself up in heaven. The face of this Pepi is the
face of Ap-uat, \/ £^ ^^ £^ v^ ; he cometh forth and raiseth
himself up in heaven. The two eyes of Ra-meri are the great
goddess (Hathor ?) at the head of the Souls of Annu ; he cometh
forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The mouth of this Pepi
is Khens-ur, I ^^^ ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up
in heaven. The tongue of this Pepi is the steering-pole (?) of the
boat of Maat ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven.
The teeth of this Pepi are the Souls [of Annu] ; he cometh forth
and raiseth himself up in heaven. The lips of this Pepi are
the . . . . ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven.
1 See Teta, 1. 209. 3 See Unas {Becueil), torn, iii , pp. 209-211.
3
4
1. 265.
5
^5P ^. -^^^ . _ A — n rCTnl □
a:^p— crm]^- p'p=i->-«'-
110
DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD
The CHIN of this Pepi is Khert-Khent-Sekhem, ^ r|Tj| ^ ^ ; he
Cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The backbone of
this Pepi is [the Bull] Sma, 1 ^ ^■Sv . \q cometh forth and
raiseth himself up in heaven. The shoulders and arms of this
Pepi are Set ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven.
The [breast] of this Pepi is Baabu, J ^^ fl J y 5 ^^® cometh
forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The heart of this
Ra-meri is Bastefc ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up
in heaven. The belly of this Ra-meri is Xut ; he cometh
forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The [loins of
this Pepi are] the Great and Little companies of the gods ;
he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The
BACK of this Pepi is Heqet ; he cometh forth and raiseth
himself up in heaven. The buttocks, ® ^"^^^ of this Ra-meri are
D 'C? '3''
the Semket and Mat boats ; ^ he cometh forth and raiseth himself
up in heaven. The phallus of this Pepi is Hap ; ^ he cometh
forth and raiseth himself up in heaven. The two thighs^ of
Ra-meri are Nit and Serqet ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself
up in heaven. The two legs * of this Ra-meri are the twin soul-
gods at the head of Sekhet-tcher ; ^ he cometh forth and raiseth
himself up in heaven. The soles of the two eeet ^ of this Ra-
meri are the double Maati boat ; he cometh forth and raiseth
himself up in heaven. The heels (?), "^ ^, of this Pepi are the
Souls of Annu ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up in
heaven."
In the XVIIIth Dynasty versions of this interesting text were
Avritten in papyri containing the TJooJo of the Dead, and of these
the following exhibit variant readings which appear to indicate
changes of belief.
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DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD
111
Fkom the Papyrus of Nu.
(Brit. Mus., No. 10,477, sheet 6.)
" My hair is the hair of Nu.
" My face is the face of the Disk.
" My eyes are the eyes of Hathor.
" My ears are the ears of Ap-uat.
" My nose is the nose of Khenti-
" khas.
*'My lips are the lips of Anpu.
"My teeth are the teeth of
'' Serqet.
" My neck is the neck of the
" divine goddess Isis.
" My hands are the hands of
" Ba-neb-Tattu.
" My fore-arms are the fore-arms
" of Neith, the Lady of Sai's.
"My backbone is the backbone
" of Suti.
" My phallus is the phallus of
" Osiris.
" My reins are the reins of the
" Lords of Kher-aha.
" My chest is the chest of Aa-
" sheht.
" My belly and back are the
" belly and back of Sekhet.
" My buttocks are the buttocks
" of the Eye of Horus.
" My hips and legs are the hips
" and legs of Nut.
" My feet are the feet of Ptali.
" [My fingers] and my leg-bones
" are the fino-ers and leo;-
" bones of the Living Gods.
"There is no member of my
From the Papyrus of Ani.
(Brit. Mus., No. 10,470, sheet 32.)
"The hair of Osiris Ani is the
" hair of JSTu.
" The face of Osiris Ani is the
" face of Ra.
" The eyes of Osiris Ani are the
" eyes of Hathor.
" The ears of Osiris Ani are the
" ears of Ap-uat.
" The lips of Osiris Ani are the
" lips of Anpu.
"The teeth of Osiris Ani are the
"teeth of Serqet.
"The neck of Osiris Ani is the
" neck of Isis.
" The hands of Osiris Ani are
" the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu.
" The shoulder of Osiris Ani is
" the shoulder of Uatchet.
" The throat of Osiris Ani is the
" throat of Mert.
" The fore-arms of Osiris Ani
" are the fore-arms of the
" Lady of Sais.
"The backbone of Osiris Ani is
" the backbone of Set.
" The chest of Osiris Ani is the
" chest of the Lords of
" Kher-Aha.
" The flesh of Osiris Ani is the
" flesh of Aa-shefit.
"The reins and back of Osiris
" Ani are the reins and
" back of Sekhet.
" The buttocks of Osiris Ani are
112
DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD
body which is not the
member of a god. The
god Thoth shieldeth my
body wholly, and I am
Ra day by day." ^
"the buttocks of the Eye
" of Horus.
"The phallus of Osiris Ani is
" the phallus of Osiris.
" The legs of Osiris Ani are the
" legs of Nut.
" The feet of Osiris Ani are the
" feet of Ptah.
"The fino:ers of Osiris Ani are
" the fingers of Orion.
" The leg-bones of Osiris Ani
" are the leg-bones of the
" Living Uraei."
The text which follows that describing the deification of the
members in the inscription of Pepi I.^ is perhaps of even greater
interest, for it declares that : —
" This Pepi is god, the son of god ; he cometh forth and raiseth
" himself up to heaven. This Ra-meri is the son of Ra, who loveth
"him ; he cometh forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. Ra hath
" sent forth this Ra-meri, who cometh forth and raiseth himself up
" to heaven. Ra hath conceived this Pepi, who cometh forth and
" raiseth himself up to heaven. Ra hath given birth to this Pepi,
" who cometh forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. This [is] the
" word of power which is in the body of Ra-meri, and he cometh
"forth and raiseth himself up to heaven. This Ra-meri is the
" Great Power among the great company of sovereign chiefs who
" are in Annu, and he cometh forth and raiseth himself up to
"heaven."
In the previous pages it has been shown that the Great
company of the Gods of Heliopolis contained nine or more gods,
and that whenever these Avere adopted by other cities and towns
the attributes of tlie chief of the Heliopolitan gods were transferred
to the local nome-god, and the identities of both gods were merged
in each other. It will, however, be evident at a glance that there
^ See my CJiaj)ter$ of Coming Forth hi/ Daij (Translation), p. 94.
2 Line 574,
THE GODS OF HERMOPOLIS 113
were very few localities which could afford to maintain in a proper
state the worship of nine or more great gods in addition to that of
the nome-god, and as a matter of fact we find that very few even
of the great towns and cities adopted all the gods of the companies
of Heliopolis, and that very few possessed companies of gods which
contained as many members as nine. The city of Khemennu
(Hermopolis) was famous as the sanctuary of the company of Eight
Gods, indeed the name "Khemennu," 5, means ''the city of the
Eight Gods." The names of these gods Avere : — 1. Nu,
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2-N-.°^=:i. 3.H.,.,||^|. ,.m,..,ii^ii.
5. Kekdi, ^W^-T"^- 6. Kekuit, ^W^-j^'^. 7.
Kereh, ^ I .^^s. 3 . 8. Kerehet, ^ | 2~~^ J) ? ^^^1 with their
leader Tehuti, or Thoth, they formed one of the oldest of the
companies of gods in all Egypt. The names of the members of the
pant, or company, of Hermopolis as here given are taken from the
texts inscribed on the walls of the temple which Darius 11. built at
Hebet in the Oasis of Kharga/ and which is a comparatively late
building, but there is reason for believing that they are copied from
very ancient documents, and that taken together this group of gods
represents the oldest form of the Hermopolitan jj«2iL In some lists of
the gods Amen and Ament are made to take the places of Nu and
Nut, and those of Kereh and Kerehet are filled by Nenu and ISTenut;
in others Amen and Anient are substituted for Kereh and Kerehet.^
Throughout Egypt generally the company of gods of a to"\vn
or city were three in number, and they were formed by the local
deity and two gods who were associated with him, and who shared
with him, but in a very much less degree, the honour and
reverence which were paid to him. Speaking generally, two
members of such a triad were gods, one old and one young, and
the third was a goddess, who Avas, naturally, the wife, or female
counterpart, of the older god. The younger god was the son of
the older god and goddess, and he was supposed to possess all the
1 See Brngsch, Beise nach der grossen Oase el-Khargeh, Leipzig, 1878, pi. 14.
2 For the lists of the ])ciiit of Thoth at Edfii, Dendera, Karnak, Philae, etc.,
see Bragsch, Beligionimd Mythologie, p. 127.
I
114 THE CONCEPTION OF THE TRIAD
attributes and powers which belonged to his father. The head of
the triad was sometimes Ra, and sometimes a god of compara-
tively limited reputation, to whom were ascribed the power and
might of the great Sun-god, which his devotees assumed that he
had absorbed. The feminine counterpart or wife of the chief god
was usually a local goddess of little or no importance ; on the other
hand, her son by the chief god was nearly as important as his father,
because it was assumed that he would succeed to his rank and
throne when the older god had passed away. The conception of
the triad or trinity is, in Egypt, probably as old as the belief in
the gods, and it seems to be based upon the anthropomorphic
views which were current in the earliest times about them. The
Egyptian provided the god with a wife, just as he took care to
provide himself with one, in order that he might have a son to
succeed him, and he assumed that the god would have as issue a
son, even as he himself wished and expected to have a son. In
later times, the group of nine gods took the place of the triad,
but we are not justified in assuming that the ennead was a simple
development of the triad. The triad contains two gods and one
goddess, but the ennead contains five gods and four goddesses,
being made up of four pairs of deities, and one supreme god. The
ennead is, however, often regarded as a triad of triads, and the
three enneads of Heliopolis, 111111111111111111111111111 ,
as a triad of a triad of triads. The conception of the ennead is
probably very much later than that of the triad.^ Examples
of triads are : — At Mendes, Ba-neb-Tattu "^ ^:z^ M ^' ^^*"^®^^^*
^ c^ I (|(| ^ |l, and Heru-pa-khart ^ D ^ ^ ^; a* Tcheqa,
Sebek [l J ^, Isis jj ^ ^, and Amen (] " ^; at Memphis, Ptali
III ^'^"^'^ P t ^^^ 5' '"^^ I-^^"l^^t^P 5 k:^ ^ -^* ^^''^''^
Amen-R. () ^ ? ^ , Mut ^ ^ ^^nd Khensu^^j ^ ^ ; and
triads like Osiris, Isis, and Horus J^, j ^, ^^jj ^ ^? ^^^ ^®*'
Nephthys, and Anubis P^^, 'O'o^' IT^S^ ^^^^^"^ ^^°^"
^ An exactly opposite view is taken by M. Maspero (La Mythologie :Egy])tienne,
p. 270).
POLYTHEISM AND MONOTHEISM 115
shipped in several places in Egypt. The members of many triads
in Egypt varied at different times and in different places, but
variations were caused chiefly by assimilating local gods and
goddesses with the well-known members of the companies of the
gods of Heliopolis.
The facts recorded in the preceding pages show that the great
gods of the dynastic period in Egypt were selected from a large
number of local gods, who were in turn chosen from among the
representatives of the gods of the desert, and mountain, and earth,
and water, and air, and sky, who had been worshipped in
predynastic times. Thus in the great company of the gods of
Heliopolis we have Shu, a form of An-her hi^^=^J|> the local
god of Sebennytus ; Osiris, the local god both of Busiris and
Mendes ; Isis, a form of the still more ancient goddess " Uatchit,
lady of Pe," | If] ^ L,^^^^ , ^ "p, i.e., Buto ; Tefnet, the goddess
of a district in the fifteenth nome of Lower Egypt ; etc. The gods
of the later jDredynastic period were, of course, developed out of
the multitude of spirits, good and bad, in whom the most primitive
Egyptians believed, and it is clear that in general characteristics
the gods of the dynastic period were identical with those of the
predynastic period, and that the Egyptians rarely abandoned any
god whose priests in the earliest times had succeeded in establishing
for him a recognized position. The form of the worship of the
gods must have changed greatly, but this was due rather to the
increase in the general prosperity of the country than to any
fundamental change in the views and beliefs of the Egyptians as to
their gods ; the houses of the gods, or temples, became larger and
larger and more magnificent as increased wealth flowed into the
country as the result of foreign conquest, but the gods remained
the same, and the processions and ceremonies, though more mag-
nificent under the New Empire, preserved the essentials of the
early period. But if we examine the religious texts carefully it
will be seen that the Egyptians were always trying to reduce the
number of their gods, or, in other words, were always advancing
from polytheism to monotheism. The priesthood and the educated
classes must have held religious views which were not absolutely
identical with those of the peasant who cultivated the fields, but
116 ABSORPTION OF ANCIENT GODS
such, I believe, were concerned chiefly with the popular forms of
worship of the gods and with conceptions as to their nature. The
uneducated people of the country clung with great tenacity to the
ordinary methods of celebrating their worship, principally because
the frequent festivals and the imposing ceremonies, which formed a
large and imjDortant part of it, were regarded as essential for their
general well-being ; the priests and the educated, on the other
hand, clung to them because their influence was not sufficiently
powerful to establish a j^ojiular form of religion and worship which
would be consistent with their own private views.
Every change which can be traced in the religion of the
country proves that the priesthoods of the various great religious
centres absorbed into the new systems whenever possible the
ancient gods and the ancient beliefs in them ; hence during the
period of the highest culture in Egyj^t we find ideas of the grossest
kind jostling ideas which were the product of great intellectuality
and much thinking. Expressions which are the result of a series
of beliefs in tree gods, desert gods, water gods, earth gods, and gods
with human passions, abound, and it is these which have drawn down
upon the Egyptians the contempt of the Hebrews, the Greeks, and
the Romans, and even of modern skilled investigators of Egyptian
religion and mythology. It has not been sufiiciently realized that
the polytheism of the Egyptians had aspects which Avere peculiar
to itself, and the same may be said of one jDhase of the beliefs
of this people which appears to be, and which, the Avriter thinks,
undoubtedly is, monotheistic. When the j^i'iests of Heliopolis
formulated their system of theogony they asserted that the god
Tem produced the two gods that issued from himself, i.e., Shu and
Tefnut, by masturbation,^ and there is little doubt that in making
this declaration they were repeating what the half savage and
primitive Egyptians may really have believed; but it would be
1
11. 465, 466
P^ Q AA/Vv'^ ^2i AAA/V\A
NOTION OF DIVINE UNITY 117
utterly wrong to declare that the priests themselves believed these
things, or that such a statement represented the views of any
educated person in Egypt on the subject of the origin of the gods.
In Chapter xvii. of the Booh of the Deacl'^ is an allusion to the
fight which took place between Horus and Set, but no Egyptian
who accepted the refined beliefs which are found even in the same
chapter could have regarded this allusion as anything more than
the record of an act of savagery which had crept into religious
texts at a time when acts of the kind were common.
The same might be said of dozens of expressions and allusions
which are scattered throughout the texts of all periods, and no
just investigator will judge the Egyptians, and their religion,
and their beliefs by the phases of thought and expressions which
reflect the manners and customs and ideas of the primitive dwellers
in the Valley of the Nile. But yet it is precisely by such things that
the Egyi^tian religion is judged by many modern writers. The
eminent Egyptologist, M. Maspero, says that before he began to
decipher Egyptian texts for himself, and so long as he was content
to reproduce the teaching of the great masters of the science of
Egyptology, he believed that the Egyptians had in the earliest
times arrived at the notion of divine unity, and that they had
fashioned an entire system of religion and of symbolic mythology
with an incomparable surety of hand. When, however, he began
to study the religious texts he found that they did not breathe out
the profound wisdom Avhich others had found. ^' Certainly," he
says, "no one will accuse me of wishing to belittle the Egyptians ;
" the more I familiarize myself with them, the more I am persuaded
" that they were one of the great nations of the human race, and
" one of the most original and most creative, but at the same
" time that they always remained half savage." ^ In other words,
X
PnT^I^"^^^^" ^J-^^ "^ J (11.67,68).
" •' J'ai era, au debout de ma carriere, il y a bientot viugt-cinq ans de cela, et
" j'ai soutenii pendant longtemps, comme M. Brugsch, que les Egyptians etaient
" parvenus, des lear enfance, a la notion de I'unite divine et qu'ils en avaient tire
" un systems entier de religion et de mytbologie symbolique, agence d'un bout a
118 NOTION OF DIVINE UNITY
the Egyptians, according to M. Maspero, never attained to the idea
of the unity of God, and Avere at the best of times nothing but a
half savage nation. It is easy to bring a charge of being half
savafje ao;ainst a ffreat nation, but in this case the charo-e is ill-
founded, and is, in the writer's opinion, contradicted by every
discovery which is made in Egypt ; for the more we learn of the
ancient Egyptians the more complete and far-reaching we find
their civilization to have been. The evidence of the monuments of
the Egyptians will, however, be sufficient to exhibit the character
of this civilization in its true light, and, as the expression " half
savage " is at best very vague, and must vary in meaning according
to the standpoint of him who uses it, we pass on to consider the
question whether the Egyptians attained to a conception of the
unity of God or whether they did not.
.We have seen that M. Maspero believes that they did not, but
on the other hand some of the greatest Egytologists that have
ever lived thought that they did. He thinks that the Egyptians
possessed the greater number of their myths in common with the
most savage of the tribes of the Old and New Worlds, that their
practices preserved the stamp of primitive barbarism, that their
religion exhibits the same mixture of grossness and refinement
which is found in their arts and crafts, that it Avas cast in a mould
by barbarians, and that from them it received an impression so
deep that a hundred generations have not been able to eftace it,
nor even to smooth its roughnesses or to soften its outlines.^ No
" I'autre avec une siirete de main incomparable. C'ctait le temps ou je n'avais pas
" essaye par moi-meme le dcchiffrement des textes religieux et ou je me bornais
" Ji reproduire I'enseignement de nos grands maitres. Quand j'ai ete contraint
" de les aborder, j'ai du m'avoiier <\ moi-mume qu'ils ne respiraient point
" cefcte sagesse profonde que d'autres y avaient sentie. Certes on ne m'accusera pas
" de vouloir deprecier les Egyptiens : plus je me familiarise avec eux, et plus je me
" persuade qu'ils ont etc un des grands peuples de I'humanite, I'un des plus originaux
" et des plus croateurs, mais aussi qu'ils sont toujours demeures des demi-barbares."
L(i MytholcKjie, p. 277.
1 " En art, en science, en industrie, ils ont beaucoup invente, beaucoup
" produit, beaucoup promis surtout ; leur religion presente le meme melange de
" grossicrete et de raffincment qu'on retrouve dans tout le reste. La plupart de
" ses mythes lui sont communs avec les tribus les plus sauvages de I'Aucien et du
" Nouveau-Monde ; ses pratiques gardent le cachet de la barbarie primitive, et je
"crois que les sacrifices humains n'en avaient pas diaparu dans certaines circon-
EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM 119
one will attempt to deny that traces of half savage ideas and
customs are to be found in Egyptian religious literature, but the
real question is whether such traces render it impossible for the
Egyptians ever to have attained to the concejDtion of monotheism,
whether the existence of such half savage ideas and customs is
incompatible with it or not. Every one who is familiar with the
literatures of oriental religions knows that the sublime and the
ridiculous, spiritual ideas and material views, intellectuality and
grossness, and belief and superstition, occur frequently in close
juxtaposition, and illustrations of these statements may be found
in the writings of the Arabs, and even in certain parts of the
Hebrew Scriptures. Yet no one will deny that the Arabs as a
people have been monotheists since the time of Muhammad the
Prophet, and no one will refuse to admit that the Hebrews, after
a certain date in their history, became monotheists and have
remained so. The literatures of both the Hebrews and the Arabs
are full of extravagances of every kind, but no competent person
has denied to these nations the right to be called monotheistic, and
no one in the light of modern research will attempt to judge them
by the coarsest expressions and materialistic thoughts which are
found in their Scriptures. On the other hand, no one expects to
find either in Hebrew or in Arabic literature the lofty spiritual
and philosophical conceptions which modern highly educated
thinkers associate with the idea of monotheism, and the same is,
of course, to be said for the literature of the Egyptians ; but it is
not difficult to show that the idea of monotheism which existed in
Egypt at a very early period is at least of the same character
as that which grew up among both Hebrews and Arabs many
centuries later.
To prove this statement recourse must be had to a number of
extracts ^ from religious texts, and among such may be quoted the
following': — To the dead king Unas it is said, "Thou existest at
" stances, meme sous les grands Pharaons tliebains. Elle a ete jetee au moule
" par des Barbares, et elle a regu d'eus une empreinte si forte que cent generations
" n'ont pu, je ne dirai pas I'effacer, mais en amollir les asperites et en adoucir les
"contours." La Mythologie, p. 277.
^ See tlie group given in my Papyrus of Ant, London, 1895, p. Ixxxiii. ff.
120 EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
" the side of God," ^^ ^^=^ t\ <=> S P ^= 1 ; of Teta it is said,
" He weighetli words, and behold, God hearkeneth unto the words,"
king it is said, '' God hath called Teta (in his name, etc.),"
/wwNA n 1 ^ww^ r^ (j J |; to Pepi I. it is said, "Thou hast received the
" attribute (or, form) of God, thou hast become great therewith
'' before the gods," ^ D ^_^ [] <2>- ^ ] __^ ^^^ 1 1^ <^
I I I ; and " Thy mother Nut hath set thee to be as God to thine
^' enemy in thy name of God," A aaaa/v^ '\\ "^ ^ ^^ V\ "1
j ; and of the same king it is
■*Vi ww\^
said, "This Pepi is, therefore, God, the son of God," [gi]^] D^
(J <=> 1 1 ^^ Hi. It may be argued that we should render neter, T ,
in these passages by "a god" or "the god," but this would make
nonsense of the passages in most cases. There is no point in
telling a dead king that he will live "by the side of a god," or
that " a god " will listen to his words when he is weighing words,
i.e., giving judgment upon matters in the next world ; Avhat the
writer said and what he meant his readers to understand was that
Unas will live with the God, or God, and that he will have such an
exalted position there that he will be appointed by God to act as
judge, an offic^e which belonged to God himself, and that God will
listen to, i.e., obey his rulings. The above passages are taken from
texts of the Vth and Vlth Dynasties, but they are only copies of
older documents, for there are good reasons for thinking that even
so far back as the time when they Avere made, about B.C. 3300, the
texts had already been revised two or three times, and changes
and additions made in them as the result of modified beliefs and
ideas.
The value of such passages, however, consists in the fact that
they prove conclusively that so far back as B.C. 3300 some one
god had become so great in the mind of the Egyptians that
he stood out from among the "gods," 111 i, and was different
from the First, Second, and Third companies of the gods,
OSIRIS AS GOD 121
immimninninnmi- Anoti... view whic.
may be urged is that the neter, |, here referred to is either the
god Osiris or the god Ra, but even so it must be admitted that
Osiris or Ra occupied a position in the mind of the Egyptian
theologian which was far superior to that of any of the " gods."
On the other hand, it must be pointed out that the Pyramid
Texts are full of passages in which we are told what great things
Ra will do for the deceased in the next world, and the honour
which he will ^Day to him, and we must therefore conclude that
the God referred to in the passages which we have quoted is not
Ra, although he may be Osiris. But if we arrive at this conclu-
sion we must admit that ia the relatively remote period about
B.C. 3300 Osiris was considered to be such a great god, and to
occupy such an exalted position at the head of the " gods," that
he could be spoken of and referred to simply as " God." We have
already seen it implied that Osiris was the judge of those who
were in the Underworld, and we know from the text of Unas
(line 494) that he sat on a throne in heaven ; ^ as the king is said
to have become " god, and the messenger (or, angel) of God " ^
(line 175), and to " enter into the place which was more holy than
any other place " ^ (line 178), it is perfectly clear that the God of
the Pyramid Texts was an entirely different being from the " gods "
and the " companies of the gods." The deceased is actually called
" Osiris Pepi," ^ and as he is said to have become an angel of God,
if Osiris be that God and judge, he must have held a similar
position to that of the God of the Hebrews, who is said to "judge
among the gods," ^ and must have been ministered to by "gods'
„ I csz: n J
^ ra^ <^jj (gjj]- Pepi I., 1.60.
■' Psalm Ixxxii. 1, IDJ3^> WJlbii 21^3..
122 CONCEPTION OF GOD
of a rank inferior to his o-s\ti. We may assume, then, that the
God of the Pyramid Texts was Osiris, the god and judge of the
dead, but it is clear that the only aspects of the God which are
referred to are those which he bears as the god and judge of
the dead. We have, unfortunately, no means of knowing how
he was described by his earliest worshippers, for the priests
of Heliopolis, when they absorbed him into their theological
system, took care to give him only such characteristics as suited
their own views ; they have, however, shown us that he was
the judge of the dead, and that he occuj^ied a unique position
among the gods, and enjoyed some of the powers possessed by
the God of the nations which are on all hands admitted to be
monotheistic.
But Ave may obtain further information about the conception
of God among the Egyptians by an examination of certain passages
in the famous Precepts of Kaqemna and the Precepts of Ptah-
hetep. The first of these works was composed ia the reign of
Seneferu, a king of the IVth Dynasty, and the second in the reign
of Assa, a king of the Vth Dynasty, but we only know them from
the copies contained in the papyrus which was given to the
Bibliotheque Royale in Paris by E. Prisse d'Avennes in 1847.^
This document was probably written about the period of the
XVIIth Dynasty, and may, of course, contain readings and addi-
tions reflecting the opinions of the Egyptians on religion and
morals which were then current ; but the foundations of both
works belong to an earlier time, though whether that time fell
under the Xllth Dynasty, as some think, or under the IVth and
Vth Dynasties as the works themselves declare, matters little for
our present purpose. In both sets of Precepts we have a series of
moral aphorisms similar to those with which we are familiar in the
Book of Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus, and the Book of Proverbs,
and they are given as the outcome of the experience of men of the
world ; neither the work of Kaqemna nor that of Ptah-lietep can
be said to have been drawn up from a religious point of view,
and neither author supports his advice by appeals to religious
1 See Facsimile tViin papyrus ^gyptien en airacUres hieraiiques, Paris,
1847, folio.
CONCEPTION OF GOD
123
authority. In these works we find the following admonitions and
reflections : —
1.
1''
an rehlientu Miepert drit neter
" Not [are] known the things which maketh Grod,"
i.e., the things which will come to pass by God's agency cannot be
known, that is to say, God's ways are inscrutable.
2.
/I\
I I I
1
du dm tail Jcher sehher neter
The eating of bread is according to the plan of God,
i.e., a man's food comes to him through the providence of God.
'■I
dm - h
Thou shalt not
dri her
put terror
em
into
reth
men and women
Jihesef neter
is opposed [thereto] God.
4.
HP
ter em selchet td set
labour in the field (which) hath given
dr seka - nek
If thou hast land
for ploughing
1'
neter
God.
"•^ . The author of this observation was Kaqemna ; the other ones are by
Ptah-hetep.
124
CONCEPTION OF GOD
5.
A
dr un - nek em sa dqer dri - h f^a
If thou wouldst be a man perfect make thou [thy] son
eih smam neter
to be pleasing unto God.
I ^ d1
A
sehet&p dqu - h em Ihepert-neh l-Jiejyert
Satisfy thy dependants by thy actions ; it should be done
1
(5??. //esesu neter
by him that is favoured by God.
7.
mertu
What is loved
1'
neter
of God
D
is
setem
obedience ;
an setem
disobedience
en mestetu
hateth
1'
neter
God.
=^ A 0
mdk sa nefer en tat a
Verily a son good [is] of the gifts
1'
neter
of God.
And finally from the Prisse Papyrus may be quoted the exhorta-
tation, " If having been of no account, thou hast become great, and
" if, having been poor, thou hast become rich, when thou art
IDEA OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE 125
" governor of the city be not hard-hearted on account of thy
" advancement, because thou hast [only] become
mer se'ptu neter
" the guardian of the provisions of God."
From this group of extracts we learn that the ways of the god
referred to in the " Precepts " were inscrutable, that it was he who
was supposed to give a man children, and property, and food, that
he was ojDposed to any man tyrannizing over his fellow creatures ;
that he loved to be obeyed and hated disobedience, i.e., those who
would not hearken unto him ; that the perfect man was he who
brought up his son in ways pleasing to God ; that God expected the
man who had been favoured by him to do good to those who were
dependent upon him ; and the writer of the " Precepts " urged the
governor of a city to remember that he was only the guardian of
goods and provisions which belonged to God. In all these extracts
it is clear that the allusion is to some great and j)owerful being who
rules and governs the world and provides according to his will for
those who are in it. In the second extract we have the words
si'hlier neter, i.e., the seJcher of God. The word sehlier 1 ) , has
many meanings, among them being " thought, plan, intention,
scheme, design," and the like, and when Ptah-hetep said that " the
eating of bread is according to the seJcher of God," there is no
doubt that he intended his readers to understand that a man
obtained bread, or food, to eat according to the plan or design
which God had made, or decreed beforehand. A rendering which
would very well represent the words sehlier neter is " Divine provi-
dence ; " but they do not justify the translation " fate " which has
been proposed for them.
Now we know that both the writers Kaqemna and Ptah-hetep
lived in the neighbourhood of Memphis, because their tombs are at
vSakkara, and if they lived at Memphis their great local god would
be Ptah of the Beautiful Face, or Ptali of the White Wall, whose
126 PRECEPTS OF KHENSU-HETEP
feminine counterpart was Sekliet and whose son was I-em-hetep.
But in the group of extracts just given there is no mention of any
of these gods, and the God referred to cannot be Osiris, first,
because the texts are not funereal, and secondly, because the
attributes ascribed to this God are not of those which we know
from later texts belonged to the god of the dead. Who then is the
God whose j)ower, and providence, and government of the world
are here proclaimed ? The answer to this question is that the God
referred to is God, Whose power men of the stamp of Ptah-hetep
discerned even at the remote period in which he lived, and Whose
attributes they clearly distinguished ; He was in their opinion too
great to be called anything else but God, and though, no doubt,
they offered sacrifices to the gods in the temple at Memphis, after
the manner of their countrymen, they knew that God was an
entirely different Being from those " gods."
Passing now to the period of the New Empire we have to
consider a few extracts from the famous work commonly known as
the "Maxims of Ani," or the "Precepts of Khensu-hetep," which
was first described^ by E. de Rouge in 1861, and was published in
full fifteen years later by Chabas.^ The text ^ is written upon a
papyrus which was found in a box lying upon the floor of the tomb
of a Christian monk at Der al-Medinet, and from considerations of
palaeography it must probably be assigned to the period of the
XXIInd Dynasty, but the original composition must be a great
deal older, and it may well date from the XVIIIth Dynasty. The
following extracts will illustrate the conception of God in the mind
of the author of the " Maxims " : —
1^ - p:^^^
jpa neter en saaud ren - f
The God is for making great his name.
1 See Moniteur, 15 Aout, 1861 ; and Comptes Eendus, Paris, 1871, pp.
340-350.
2 See L':Egyptolo(jie, Chalons-sur-Saone and Paris, 4to, 1876-1878.
3 A facsimile was published by Mariette in Papyrus ^gyptiens du Musee de
£oulaq.
PRECEPTS OF KHENSU-HETEP
127
pa
The
1
netei
V
D
dput pa
God [is] the judge of the
J)
ma a
right.
or, the God is the judge, the righteous one, i.e., the judge who
passes sentence according to what is straight, mad, i.e., the law
the canon.
3.
du tdii
Giveth
1
neter-hu
thy God
'J
unu
the means of subsistence.
4. " I have given thee thy mother," the writer says to his son,
and she carried thee even as she carried thee, and took upon
herself a heavy burden for thy sake, and did not lean upon me.
When at length thou wast born after having been carried by her
for months, she laid herself under thy yoke, and she nourished
thee for three years, -^ and was never weary of thee. . . . When
thou wast sent to school to be taught, she came every day
without fail to thy master [bringing] bread and beer [for thee]
from her house. Now thou hast become a man and hast married
a wife and hast a house, set thine eye upon thy child, and bring
him up as thy mother brought thee up. Wrong not thy mother
lest she lift up
ddui-set en
"her hands to
[and punish thee].
^ (3
^
u
pa
the
1
neter emtuf setemu sebhu-set
God [and] he hearken unto her prayers "
I
amma sic en
Let [a man] give himself to
pa
the
1
neter
God,
■^ Literally, " lier breasts were in thy mouth for three years."
128
PRECEPTS OF KHENSU-HETEP
I
^ O
1
saim - Jc sn em-ment en pa neter
" keep thou thyself daily for the God,
w
tuaiiu ond-qeti iki
ra
o
au tuami ma-qeii va haru
' to-morrow (?) being like the day (to-day?)."
(3 AAAAA^ I I
Ichennu en neter hetu-tuf
" The sanctuary of God its abomination
pu sehebii
is much speaking.
-^ l2i' 1
senemehii-neh
em
ah
mert
" Make thou thy prayers with a heart of love
du metet - f
all the petitions
A/VV\Aft
fll , , ,
??,eZ>^ dmeiinu dri-f
" of which are in secret. He will perform
I ^ (^
kheru-fuk
thy affairs,
^ ¥^^-
V^ \\\V-
U I I I 1 ^' ^ (^ I '^^'"'^ -21 ^i— a L' '
setemu-f d tcJieteiu-h seslieiyn-\_f'\
" he will hear what thou say est, he will accept
AA/VW\
0 e
^ (3 I
utemm-tuh
thine offerings.
1
e
T v\ /WVNAA v\
iitennii neter-lcu sau-tu <> er
" In making offerings to thy God guard thou thyself against
lifX
Jd _m Jf^
betau-tuf
O
.^^
a
ennii
maat-h er
" the things which he 0 observe [with] thine eye
abominateth.
PRECEPTS OF KHENSU-HETEP
129
A
£S
c^ (^
AAAAA^
N\r\fsi\r\ \\
'paif
"his
selilieru
plans.
qenteb emtuh senenti-tu
Devote thyself to the adoration
1
[^ a
lit I
6771
"of
AAA/W\
en
"of
ren - f
his name.
su tat
It is he who giveth
W^\\\ fi
^^1
haiu
souls
hell
to millions
aaru
forms,
p:^^^
^daua
" magnifieth him.
O
Shim
f
^
^ w
sdaud pa enti
and [he] magnifieth whosoever
I i — I I \> AA^AAA
ar 7iefer ta pen en
Now the god of this earth is
hliid du naif mdtui
pa btiuu her
" the god Shu, he who is over the horizons. His similitudes
^^
A a
tdtd-thd
senterd
her tep ta laia-itia sentera em
" [are] upon earth, are given [to them] offerings of incense with
V^s,,,
^ o
Icai-set em-ment.
" their food offerings daily."
The group of passages given above supplies a new set of
attributes ascribed by the Egyptians to God, and they show that
they believed this Being to be one who judged according to right,
who was jealous for the honour of his name, who received prayers
K
130 CONCEPTION OF GOD AND THE GODS
and offerings, and who granted to the suppliant all his petitions,
and performed all his desires, when such petitions were made to
him in secret and with a " loving heart." The seventh extract is
peculiarly instructive, for in it we have a sharp distinction drawn
between this God and the solar god Shu, who is here, clearly,
identiiied with the Sun-god. The worshipper of God is exhorted
to consider His plans, or designs, fl ^^ \ ' \^ which are manifest
upon earth, to pay good heed to the manner in which he makes
oiferings to Him, and to dedicate himself to the adoration of His
name, for it is He Avho giveth souls, i.e., life, to millions of beings,
and those who exalt Him He will exalt. On the other hand, the
similitudes of the god Shu, the lord of the horizons, i.e., the skies
of the South and the North, the East and the West, and the god
of this earth, are upon the earth, and to them offerings of incense
and meat are made daily. There is no need here to dwell upon
the lofty conception of what is meet for the worship of God ; nor
upon the fact that many of the phrases in the extract are identical
in meaning, and almost in words, with passages in the Hebrew
Scriptures, for they Avill be familiar to all, and extracts like the
following will occur to every reader : — " Consider the wondrous
works of God " (Job xxxvii. 14) ; " them that honour me I will
honour" (1 Samuel ii. 30), etc. The word rendered "similitudes,"
Q ^ H n i__fl ^ .^ difficult to explain in detail though its general
meaning is clear enough, and we must understand by it " things
which are in the likeness [of Shu] " ; these can, apparently, only
refer to the gods to whom incense and offerings were brought
daily. The great importance of .the second group of extracts
consists in the fact that they emphasize and develop the difference
between the Egyptian conception of God and the gods. The
author of the "Maxims," like Kaqemna and Ptah-hetep, set out
to write a book of moral precepts by which he intended his son to
mould his course of life and to be guided. This work is not of a
funereal character, therefore the God who is referred to throughout
cannot be Osiris, and the context proves beyond all doubt that the
writer is alluding to the same Being as were the earlier writers
of moral aphorisms already mentioned. In the case of the
ONENESS OF THE GODS
131
" Maxims," however, the word for God, neter "1 J|, is usually
qualified by the emphatic article pa A^ ^^,
But in all the passages quoted above there is no distinct
statement that the God alluded to therein is God alone, and that
there is no other God besides Him, although this is clearly implied ;
we must therefore turn to another class of texts in which the
attribute of oneness or unity is ascribed to one or more "great
gods," and see how it is applied. The god Ta-tunen is called,
" One, maker of mortals, and of the company of the gods " ; ^ the
god Ea-Tem is called, " lord of heaven, lord of earth, maker of
" beings celestial and of beings terrestrial, God One, who came
" into being in primeval time, maker of the world, creator of
" rational beings, maker of Nu (the sky), creator of the Nile,
" maker of whatsoever is in the waters, and giver of life to the
" same, knitter together of the mountains, making to come into
" being men and women, and beasts and cattle, and creator of the
"heavens and the earth" ;^ the great Khu (Spirit) whom Tem
created is described as the "only One in Nu" ; ^ Osiris is said to
be "lord of the gods, god One" ;* and in a remarkable passage,
in which the whole of the attributes of the Sun-a-od Ra have been
transferred to Amen-Ra, we have the following statement wherein
this god is said to be " the holy (or, venerable) Soul which came
1 - ^% W
-,-r If AAA/VV\
I A\ _Zi. AAAA/V^
of Ani, sheet 1, line 6.
n □ ^
AAftAAA
□ ® I
H
\\ /VWWK
I I I
Pfli
(9
Papyrus of Hunefer, sheet 1, line 5 ff .
3 JBook of the .Dead, Chap. Ixxviii. 16.
* Ibid., Chap, clxxiii.
I j"lll'nil iiiiitnii I
/VVVV^A /wwv\
132
ONENESS OF THE GODS
' into being aforetime, the great god who liveth in (or by) Maat
' (i.e., unfailing and unvarying order and regularity),
pautti
the paut
^
W
P^
G
D
fepi 7U£S pautti
primeval [which] gave the two companies of
gods,
Icheper
" came into being
1
nete7
ofod
birth to
7ieb dm - f
every through him,
I I
^ a a w
ud uoui
one alone,
n
am
f
linen
shad
ta
em
sep tepi
" he made what exists when the earth began in primeval time,
sheta.u
" hidden
^fl
\
^^
viesi aslit
of births, manifold
hlieperiu
of forms,
(2
an rekhtu
not is known
im
bes - f
"his growth." ^
The text goes on to say that Amen-Ra, is the "holy Sekhem (i.e.,
" Power), the god who is beloved, and is terrible and mighty in
"his risings, lord of space, the Power, Khepera, the creator of
" every evolution (or, thing) which belongeth to his existence,^
" except whom at the beginning none other existed." Here then
we have Ta-tunen, Ra-Tem, and the god Osiris all called " God
One," neter iid, "1 Jj i , and in the last extract we have the
remarkable expression " God One alone," i ^T 3, applied
to Amen-Ra. If we consider for a moment we shall see that the
See Maspero, Mem. Miss. Arch., torn i., p. 594.
ONENESS OF THE GODS 133
gods Tern and Khepera are only forms of the Sun-god Ra, and as
Tatunen was concerned in the production of the Sun-god he also is
a solar god ; at the time when the above extracts were written,
i.e., under the XVIIIth Dynasty, we have abundant proof that the
Egyptians were continually adding to the attributes which they
ascribed to Osiris, and that such attributes were those which
belonged to some form of Ra or to Ra himself. The word " One "
then is applied in these cases to Ra, and to the forms of Ra, and
to a god who had come to be regarded in one aspect at least as a
solar god, and it will be found on examination of the texts that
whenever a god or goddess is described as " One " it is because
that deity has been endowed by the writer, whether rightly or
wrongly is another matter, with some of the attributes of Ra.
It is easy to see from the hieroglyphic extract given above
that to the god there described are attributed many of the creative
qualities which we assign to Grod Almighty. Thus he is said to
be the primeval Paut or divine substance who gave birth to the
two companies of the gods (in this case we must understand the
company of the gods of heaven and the company of the gods of
earth, and not the Great and Little Companies of the gods of
Heliopolis), and every god came into being by him or through him.
Here it is quite clear that "every god " means only every inferior
being who possessed something of the quality of a neter or " god,"
and every being who ministered to the great Paut, and who in the
Hebrew Scriptures would be grouped under the name " Elohlm,"
D\l'72;J, or among the " angels," and in Arabic literature among the
good Jinn. The text goes on to say not only in primeval times,
i.e., "in the beginning," he created whatever exists upon the
earth, but also that in primeval time no other being existed with
him. This is a definite statement of the unity or oneness of God
which cannot be gainsaid, and it Avas this attribute of unity or
oneness which the priests of various cities ascribed to their local
god whenever they could. We have no means of saying whether
this idea of oneness or unity was first applied to Ra or to some
more ancient god such as Horus, but it is, in the writer's opinion,
quite certain that it existed in the minds of the educated classes of
Egypt in the earliest times, and that in all periods it was the
134
THE GREAT SELF-CREATED GOD
central point of their conceptions of God. But the text goes on to
say that the great Paut who created the companies of the gods is
" hidden of births and manifold of forms," and that " his growth
(or development) is unknown." This is only another way of saying
that the manner in which the beings and things produced by the
Paut came into being is unknown, and that he appears under many
forms. We may here refer to the passage in the XVIIth Chapter
of the Booh of the Dead (line 9), wherein it is said : —
0
1
ODD
nuk neter da hheper tchesef
" I am the great god self-created,
/
^ AAAAAA
Nu
Nu,
©
D
that is to say,
qemam renu
" who made his names
m
paid neteru
the company of the gods
neter
Sfod."
em
as
Concerning this being the question is asked, " Who then is this ? "
and the following answer is given : —
Bd pu
" It is Ra
qemam
who created
AAAAV\ d—M
renu
names
en
for
at - f
his members
kheper
U
eneii
D
" and these came into being
w
ami
hhet
Rd
em
in the form of
" who are in the following of Ra."
m
neteru
the gods
On the creative power of the great Paut special emphasis is laid in
the extract on p. 132, for, after declaring that he created in the begin-
HENOTHETSM 135
ning whatsoever exists, the text adds that he created everything
that had to do with his own coming into being ; and in the passages
from the Booh of the Dead it is taught, according to one dogma,
that the names of the great, self-produced god Nu became the
company of gods under the form of God, and according to another
that the gods who were in the train of Ra were the members or
limbs of Ra, and that these limbs were, in turn, the names of Ra.
The last text quoted is of considerable importance, for it gives us a
direct proof that the attributes of the god Nu were transferred to
Ra, and that Ra was identified absolutely with Nu, and the last
text but one quoted shows how the attributes of Ra were transferred
to Amen, who was originally only the local god of Thebes, by
means of the fusion of the two gods into Amen-Ra. We know
that to many gods were ascribed the attributes of Ra, and that all
solar gods were, in the dynastic period at least, held to be forms of
him ; if we could identify them all we should be able to reduce the
number of Egyptian gods considerably.
The attribute or quality of oneness or unity, which is ascribed
first to the great God who was the creator of the heavens and the
earth and all therein, and secondly to the Sun-god who was
regarded as the visible type and symbol of God and his various
forms, and thirdly, at a later period to the god Osiris, has been
termed "henotheism" by many writers who asserted that it
was a "phase of religious thought"^ which was difi'erent from
monotheism. According to the late Right Honourable Prof. Max
Miiller we have become acquainted with this phase of religious
thought " for the first time through the Veda," and he goes on to
say that "when these individual gods are invoked they are not
conceived as limited by the power of others, as superior or
inferior in rank. Each god is to the mind of the suppliant as
good as all the gods. He is felt at the time as a real divinity,
as supreme and absolute, in spite of the necessary limitations
which, to our mind, a plurality of gods must entail on every
single god. All the rest disappear from the vision of the poet,
and he only who is to fulfil their desires stands in full light
before the eyes of the worshippers." It is quite true that the
^ Max Miiller, Hibhert Lectures, p. 285.
136 HENOTHEISM
Egyptian religion passed through a phase which has been identified
as henotheism, but, assuming for a moment that we should be
correct in calling that phase henotheism, the Egyptian religious
texts prove that it was " not the henotheism of Max Miiller or of
" Hartmann, or of Asmus, but a practical henotheism, i.e., the
" adoration of one God above all others as the specific tribal god or
" as the lord over a particular people, a national or relative
'' monotheism, like that of the ancient Israelites, the worship of an
^' absolute sovereign who exacts passive obedience. This practical
^' monotheism is totally different from the theoretical monotheism,
^' to which the Aryans, with their monistic speculative idea of the
^' godhead, are much nearer." ^
These words by the late Professor Tiele here quoted were not
applied by him to the Egyptian religion, but they so well express
the present writer's views about the monotheism of the Egyptians
that they are adopted for that purpose. Professor Tiele was,
undoubtedly, the greatest authority on comparative religion of his
day, and although he was not an Egyptologist at first hand, he
had discussed Egyptian religious texts with great experts like
Chabas, Birch, de Rouge, and others, to such good purpose that
his opinion on the subject is of peculiar value. According to him
the Egyptian religion presents two apparently contradictory and
irreconcilable phenomena : — 1. A lively sentiment of the spirituality
of God united to the coarsest materialistic representations of
different divinities ; and 2. A sentiment, not less lively, of the
unity of God, united to an extremely great multiplicity of divine
persons.^ The best educated priests, he thinks, who were the
most vigorous promoters of religious progress, Avere as much
attached to forms and traditional symbols as the people themselves,
and they were most unwilling to give up any part of them. The
symbolism, being misunderstood by the ignorant folk, produced
serious errors, and the forms under which the Egyptians repre-
sented their gods, and which are repellent to our refined taste,
answered in their minds to the idea of divinity which was purer
and more spiritual than the noble and beautiful forms of the gods of
^ C. P. Tiele, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. xx., p. 367.
2 Histoire Comparee des Anciennes Religions, Paris, 1882.
POLYTHEISM AND MONOTHEISM 137
Hellas. The ignorant felt no repugnance to monstrous representa-
tions because they appeared as representations having a profound
and mysterious meaning ; the learned understood the meanings of
the symbols, and paid their adoration through them to the truth
of which they were the coverings. In other words, the uneducated
loved a plurality of gods, while the priests and educated classes
who could read and understand books adopted the idea of One
God, the creator of all the beings in heaven and on earth who, for
want of a better word, were called " gods."
The priests and theologians saw nothing incompatible in
believing that God was One, and that he existed under innumer-
able forms. We may note the existence of the same view in the
Hebrew Scriptures where, in spite of the commandments, " Thou
" shalt have no other o-ods before me. Thou shalt not make unto
" thee any graven image, or any likeness [of anything] that [is]
" in heaven above, .... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to
" them, nor serve them . . . ." (Exodus xx. 3-5), the Israelites
felt no scruple in representing God in the midst of His sons, and
for a very long time they continued to adore a number of divine
beings side by side with Yahweh.^ Thus in Joshua xxii. 22, we
read, " The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, he knoweth and
" Israel shall know; " in Exodus xxii. 28 is given the commandment,
" Thou shalt not revile the gods nor curse the ruler of thy people ; "
in Psalm cxxxvi. 2, Israel is exhorted to " give thanks unto the
" God of gods ; " the " sons of God " we know from Genesis vi. 2 ;
Job ii. 1 ; xxxviii. 7;^ and that "gods" in some passages mean
nothing but beings possessing some characteristic of God is clear
from 1 Samuel xxviii. 13, wherein we read that the witch of
Endor told Saul that she " saw gods ascending out of the earth."
The allusion in this last passage is clearly to some kind of
supernatural being or beings. Returning for a moment to the
views of Professor Tiele, we admit that, judging from certain
texts of the Dynastic Period, he is justified in asserting that
in Egypt monotheism is anterior to polytheism; but judging
from the evidence of the recently discovered monuments of the
^ Tiele, Hist. Comjmree, p. 138.
2 C£. also Dent. x. 17 ; Psalms xiv. 3 ; Ixxxii. 1, 6; Job i. 6.
138 EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
predynastic and archaic periods, we must admit that polytheism
appears to be older than monotheism. On the other hand, the
monotheistic ideas which appear in the works of Kaqemna and
Ptah-hetep were certainly not invented during the jDeriod in
which they lived, and there is every reason for believing that they
originated at a much earlier date. If literary compositions
belonging to the first three dynasties are ever brought to light
from the tombs of Egypt, we shall probably find that the idea of
the oneness of God is expressed with just as much force and
certainty as it is under the following dynasties, and in the same
works we shall also find mention of the various gods who were
created by the great God who was proclaimed to be One, and
expected to be worshipped Avith obedience.
The final opinion of Professor Tiele on the Egyptian religion
was that from the beginning it was polytheistic, but that it
developed in two opposite directions ; in the one direction gods
were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the
Egyptian drew nearer and nearer to monotheism.^
We may now consider the opinions of some of the greatest
Egyptologists on the monotheism of the Egyptians. Writing in
the Bevue Arclieologique (1860, p. 73) E. de Rouge says, "The
*' unity of a supreme and self-existent being, his eternity, his
" almightiness, and eternal reproduction thereby as God ; the
" attributing of the creation of the world and of all living beings
"to the supreme God; the immortality of the soul, completed by
" the dogma of punishments and rewards ; such is the sublime
^ " Een Yoorliistorisch. monotheisme onderstelt een graad van ontwikkeling
" en een vordering- in liet wijsgeerig nadenken, die bij een nog barbaarscli volk
" niet denkbaar zijn. Ook de egyptische godsdienst is van animisnie en magisch
'• polydaemonisme uitgegaan en zoo eerst tot poljtheisme opgeklommen. Dit
" polytliei'sme ontwikkelt zicli dan in twee gelieel tegen o vergestelde richtingen.
" Aan den eenen kant wordt de godenwereld, door bijeenvoeging van plaatselijke
" godsdiensten , een gevolg van de ondervverping der verschillende gewesten met
" hun godsdienstige middelpunten aan liet gezag van een koning, en door over-
" neming van vreemde godlieden, steeds rijker. Aan den anderen kant nadert
" men het monotheisme meer en meer, zonder het ooithelder en ondubbelzinnig nit
" te spreken. De geleerden traclitten beide mit elkander overeen te breugen, onder
" anderen door de vele goden voor te stellen als de openbaringen van den eenen»
"ongesehapen, verborgen God, zijn leben, door hem zelnengeschapen." See
Geschiedenis van den Godsdienst in de Oudheid, Amsterdam, 1893, p. 25.
EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM 139
" and persistent base which, notwithstanding all deviations and all
" mythological embellishments, must secure for the beliefs of the
" ancient Egyptians a most honourable place among the religions
" of antiquity." ^ In an article on the " Religion of the Ancient
Egyptians," written nine years later as a result of a close study of
many of the great religious texts, he asserted that more than five
thousand years before there existed in the Valley of the Nile the
hymn to the unity of God, and the belief in the unity of a supreme
God with the attributes of Creator of men, and Legislator of man,
whom he has endowed with an immortal soul. In his description
of the principal monuments at the Egyptian Museum at Biilak in
Cairo, Mariette Bey said, " At the head of the Egyptian pantheon
" soars a God who is one, immortal, uncreated, invisible and hidden
'' in the inaccessible depths of his essence ; he is the creator of the
" heavens and of the earth ; he has made everything which exists
" and nothing has been made without him ; such is the God who
" is reserved for the initiated of the sanctuary." ^ A similar view
was held by Chabas,^ who said, " The One God, who existed before
" all things, who represents the pure and abstract idea of divinity,
" is not clearly specialized by [any] one single personage of the vast
" Egyptian pantheon. Neither Ptali, nor Seb, nor Thoth, nor Ra,
^ " L'unite d'un etre suprerae existant par lui-meme, son eternite, sa toute-
" puissance et la generation eternelle en Dien ; la creation du monde et de tons
" les etres vivants attribuee a ce Dien supreme ; rimmortalite de ITime, completee
" par le dogme des peines et des recompenses ; tel est le fond sublime et persistant
" qui, malgre toutes les deviations et toutes les broderies mytbologiqnes, doit
" assurer aux croyances des anciens Egyptiens un rang tres honorable parmi les
" religions de I'antiquite." " II y a plus de 5000 ans qu'a commence, dans
"la vallee du l^i\, Vliymne a VTJnite de Dieu et a V Immortalite de Vdme; et nous
" voyons dans les derniers temps I'Egypte arrivee au Polytlieisme le plus effrene.
" La croyance d V Unite du Dieu supreme, a ses attributs de Createur et de Legislateur
" de Vhomme, qu'il a doue d'une dme immortelle ; voila les notions primitives
" encliassees comme des diamants indestructibles au milieu des superfetations mytho-
" logiques accumulees par les siecles qui ont passe sur cette vieille civilisation."
Annules de Philosophie Chretienne, Paris, 1869, p. 336.
2 " iVu sommet du pantheon Egyptien plane un Dieu unique, immortel, incree,
" invisible et cacbe dans les profondeurs inaccessibles de son essence ; il est le
" createur du ciel et de la terre ; il a fait tout ce qui existe, et rien n'a ete fait sans
" lui ; c'est le Dieu reserve ;i I'initie du sanctuaire." Mariette, Notice, Cairo,
1876, p. 17.
^ Ccdendriev des jours fastes et nefastes, p. 107.
140 EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
'' nor Osiris, nor any other god is a personification of him at all
" times ; but of these sometimes one and at other times another is
"invoked in terms which assimilate these intimately with the
" supreme type; the innumerable gods of Egypt are only attributes
" and different aspects of this unique type."
M. Pierret, in discussing the matter, holds the view that the
texts prove that the Egyptians believed in a God who was One,
and was without a second, and Avas infinite and eternal. At the
very time, however, when the scribes were writing upon papyrus
or cutting upon stone the inscriptions Avhich affirmed this belief,
the artists were making sculptures of the gods with heads of hawks,
or rams, or crocodiles, or goddesses with the heads of lionesses,
cats, or coAvs. Nevertheless the One God, who is without a second,
is One even among the company of the gods, for he has numerous
names and forms, and he appears under sacred and mysterious
forms in the temples, that is to say under the figures ^ which were
painted on the walls, and in the statues of the gods which were
set up in the temples. The greatest supporter of the doctrine of
ancient Egyptian monotheism was the late Dr. Brugsch, who
assigned to the word for God, neter T Jj, the highly philosophical
meaning which has been quoted above. Accepting the view,
which the Egyptians themselves held, that the gods were only
names of the various attributes of the One God, he searched
through the religious literature and collected from the hymns,
prayers, etc., which were addressed to the various gods and
goddesses in various periods, a number of epithets and attributes ^
which were bestowed upon them by their worshippers. These
extracts he classified, and when they were grouped and arranged
they formed a description of God such as it would be difficult to
find a parallel for outside the Holy Scriptures. It has been
contended that as these scattered epithets are never found together
the ancient Egyptians had no conception of a God who was One,
and was self-produced, and had existed, and would exist, always,
and was hidden and unknown of form and name, and was the
Creator of heaven and the gods, and earth, and man, and all
' Pierret, Le Pdiithi'on l^]gy2)tien, Paris, 1881.
~ They will be found in Brugsch, Religion uiid MytJiologie, p. 96 ff.
EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM 141
things, and was at the same time merciful, and compassionate, and
loving, and the protector of the weak against the strong, and the
re warder and protector of those who served him.
But this contention is not well founded, because, although
these attributes were ascribed to a miscellaneous number of deities,
we must remember that they would not have been thus associated
unless the writers recognized such gods as phases or aspects of the
Great God. The fact remains that such attributes were ascribed to
gods who were created by God, and that the Egyptians arrived at
such ideas as those described above is a lasting proof of the exalted
character of their religion and of their conception of monotheism.
The main point to keep in view is that the gods of Egypt were
regarded by the Egyptians generally as inferior beings to the great
God who made them, and that they were not held to be equal to
him in all respects. Further, we must repeat that the God referred
to in the moral precepts of the Early Empire holds a position
similar to that held by Yahweh among the Hebrews and A-llah
among the Arabs, and that the gods and goddesses who were
ministers of his will and pleasure find their counterparts in the
angels, and archangels, and spirits of all kinds, both good and bad,
of whom the Hebrew and Arabic literatures are full. No surer
proof of this can be given than the well-known passage in
Deuteronomy vi. 4, where it is said, " Hear, 0 Israel, Yahweh our
" God (literally, gods), is YahAveh One," ^ and the Egyptian nete7- ud
I rfl I ^, "One God," as far as the application and meaning of ud
is concerned, is identical with that of the Hebrew word "rnx in the
IT V
text quoted. We may note, too, the words, " Yahweh our gods,"
which show that Yahweh was identified with the gods, wrib^^ , of the
polytheistic period of the ancient Hebrew religion ; it is, however,
possible that when the verse in Deuteronomy was written the word
Elohtm had come to mean the great God of the Hebrews, although
originally it had meant a collection of sacred or divine beings. In
the Kur'an, Sura cxii., the God of the Arabs is declared to be
One, and from the commentaries on the Sura we know that this
declaration was revealed to Muhammad in answer to the people of
1 Compare St. Mark xii. 29.
142 EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
the Kuresh, who asked him concerning the distinguishing attributes
of the God he invited them to worship. If we had all the litera-
ture of the early Hebrews, and of the Arabs at the period of the
propaganda of Muhammad we should probably find that many
local gods in Palestine and Arabia were called One, but that only
the God who had the moral aspects which were attributed to the
great God of the Egyptians by the philosophers of the Early
Empire succeeded in retaining it permanently.
The religion of the Egyptians has, however, always been
regarded from two distinct and opposite points of view ; a number
of scholars, among whom may be mentioned Champollion-Figeac,
de Rouge, Chabas, Mariette, Deveria, Birch, and Brugsch, have
considered it to have been monotheistic, but others have declared
unhesitatingly that it was polytheistic ; this result is due probably
to the way in which it is regarded. Speaking of the difference of
opinion which existed on the subject between the late Dr. Brugsch
and himself, M. Maspero says that he and Brugsch considered the
Egyptian religion in two different Avays. Time, he says, which has
done so much harm to other nations, has shown itself favourable
to the Egyptians. It has spared their tombs, their temples, their
statues, and the thousand small objects which were the pride of
their domestic life, and it has led us in such a way that we judge
them by the most beautiful and the prettiest of the things which
they made, and has at length caused us to place their civilization
on the same footing as that of the Romans or the Greeks. But if
it be looked at more nearly the point of view changes ; to speak
quite shortly, Thothmes III. and Rameses 11. resemble Mtesa of
Central Africa more closely than they do Alexander or Caesar.
It is not their fault, but they arrived too soon in a period which
was too early, and they must bear the penalty of their precocious-
ness. In art, in science, in trade, they have invented much and
produced much, and have, above all, promised much ; their religion
presents the same mixture of coarseness and refinement which is
found in all else. Most of its myths it holds in common with the
most savage tribes of the Old and the New Worlds. The Egyptian
possessed the spirit of the metaphysician, a fact which he proved
when Christianity furnished him with a subject worthy of his
EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM 143
subtle powers. But, M. Maspero asks, what kind of metaphysics
could proceed from so naive a conception of the universe and of
things which he has revealed? He thinks it must be true, at
least in the main, because Brugsch depicted the Egyptian world in
a manner very similar to his own, and deeming it true he cannot
any longer admit the notion of the Egyptian Deity and his unity
which several scholars have adopted. He takes the Egyptian
religion for what it shows that it is, viz., a polytheism Avith its
contradictions, and its repetitions, with its dogmas indecent some-
times, cruel sometimes, and ridiculous sometimes, according to
modern ideas, and with its families of half-human gods which the
worshipper cherished the more or understood the better the more
closely they resembled himself.^ The opinion thus expressed,
though unfavourable to the character of the Egyptian, and directly
opposed to the views of some of the greatest Egyptologists of the
last century, is evidently honest, and coming from such a quarter
is entitled to the greatest respect ; but it seems that M. Maspero
has judged the Egyptians of all periods according to the standard
of religion which was in vogue in Egypt in predynastic times,
when the primitive Egyptians were, no doubt, half savage.
The Egyptians, being fundamentally an African people,
possessed all the virtues and vices which characterized the IS'orth
African races generally, and it is not to be held for a moment that
any African people could ever become metaphysicians in the
modern sense of the word. In the first place, no African language
is suitable for giving expression to theological and philosophical
speculations, and even an Egyptian priest of the highest intellectual
attainments would have been unable to render a treatise of
Aristotle into language which his brother priests without teaching
could understand. The mere construction of the language would
make such a thing an impossibility, to say nothing of the ideas of
the great Greek philosopher, which belong to a domain of thought
and culture wholly foreign to the Egyptian. The allusion to
the Christian metaphysics of the Egyptian is understandable, as
everyone knows who has taken the trouble to read the literature of
the Copts, who transferred much of the base and degraded Egyptian
^ La Mythologie ^gyptienne, p. 278.
144 EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM
mythology which was current during the first few centuries of the
Christian era into their newly acquired belief in Jesus Christ.
The lives of the Coptic martyrs show the use which the Egyptian
made of his metaphysical spirit, and the history of the early
Church in Egypt illustrates what happened when he tried to apply
it to the consideration of the common theological terms in Greek
and in Latin. Incidentally we may note that in order to express
the various ideas connected with the Christian Deity and the
Persons of the Trinity he was obliged to take over the actual
Greek words into his language, which was poor in abstract ideas.
In the picture which M. Maspero has given of the Egyptian's
conception of the universe and of the origin of gods and things he
has only dwelt upon the mythological side of the question, and has
not set forth all the passages upon which other Egyptologists have
based their views about Egyptian monotheism ; moreover, no
allowance appears to have been made for the peculiar religious and
mental characteristics of the race. But when all is said against
the Egyptian religion which can be said, the fact remains that
it is not the religion itself which has cruel, ridiculous, and
indecent dogmas, but the myths wherewith generations of foolish
priests obscured the pure beliefs in monotheism and immortality
which seem to have existed in Egypt from the earliest times. If
modern oriental religions were judged in the adverse manner in
which the religion of ancient Egypt has been judged, none would
escape similar condemnation ; the same thing may be said of some
of the religions of the Western nations.
The superstitions which exist among many Eastern nations
professing monotheism and even Christianity are as gross as those
found among so-called Pagan nations ; as examples may be quoted
the Christians of St. John in Southern Mesopotamia, and many of
the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Eastern Sudan, yet among the
former no one attempts to deny the existence of a sort of
Christianity, though he would indeed be bold who would dare to
compare it with the Christianity of such men as Canon Liddon or
Cardinal Newman ; similarly, the monotheism of the peoples of the
Eastern Sudan is universally admitted, but it does not prevent their
indulging in the coarsest and most fantastic beliefs and practices,
EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM 145
many of which, however, it must be admitted have descended to
them from their pagan ancestors. Fortunately, however, the
monotheistic character of the Egyptian religion rests on too firm a
foundation to be easily overthrown, and notwithstanding the
elaborate system of symbolic ceremonials which was so prominent a
feature of Egyptian worship, Egyptian monotheism always main-
tained its place in the minds of those who were sufficiently educated
to understand the ideas which the symbols thereof represented.
The Egyptian never confounded God with the gods, and it would
seem that he even discriminated between God and " the god of the
" city," for in the Negative Confession (No. 38) the deceased says,
" 0 Utu-rekhit, who comest forth from thy house, I have not cursed
" God " ; and in No. 42 he says, " Hail, An-a-f, who comest forth
"from Aukert (the Underworld), I have not thought scorn of (or,
" belittled) the god who is in my city." Whence came the Egyptian
conception of monotheism, or when it first sprang up, cannot be
said, but in its oldest form it is coeval with the dynastic civilization
of Egypt at least, and it may well date from far earlier times. The
monotheistic idea is not the peculiar attribute of any one people
or period. It may seem unnecessary to discuss Egyptian mono-
theism at such length, but the matter is one of great interest and
importance because the literature of Egypt proves it to have been
in existence in that country for more than three thousand five
hundred years before Christ ; in fact, Egyptian monotheism is the
oldest form of monotheism known to us. It is easy enough to
understand how anxious the priesthoods of the various cities would
be to persuade the people who worshipped the local gods that this
or that god was the being who united in himself the attributes of
the original god of the city with those of the great cosmic god with
physical aspects who created the heavens and the earth, and with
those of the ethical god who was proclaimed by Kaqemna, Ptah-
lietep, Ani, and other writers of moral precepts.
In the earliest times it was the god Horus who was chosen in
this manner, for under the form of a hawk he appears to have been
the first god who was worshipped throughout the country generally,
and the numerous forms of this god, and the fact that his attributes
were at a later period ascribed to Horus the son of Isis, attest the
L
146 HORUS AND RA
antiquity and importance of his cult. The next god chosen to
represent the great ethical God of the Egyptians was not a personi-
fication of the sky as was Horus, but the Sun-god Ril, on whom
was bestowed every epithet of power and might which was known
to the Egyptians, as well as the epithets and forms of the god
Horus. But although his worship was common throughout Egypt,
and his sanctuaries were for many centuries the most important
in the land, there is abundant proof that the Egyptians never
merged their conceptions of their great ethical God in their concep-
tions of Ra.
There seem to be traces of a belief that Ra as the spirit or
god of the sun may have been a form or representative of him, but
they are not very definite, and the worship of Ra's visible symbol,
the sun, as the source of heat and light, and therefore of life — as
the Egyptians recognized at an early period — was commoner than
any abstract conception of his nature or existence. In a hymn to
Hapi, the Nile-god, we find a remarkable passage in which some
of the chief attributes of God are ascribed to the power which
causes the Inundation and who is addressed under the names of the
gods Ptah and Khnemu. To this Being it is said by the author of
m
the hymn, '' If thou wert overcome in heaven the gods,
"would fall upon their faces and mankind would j)erish." The
context shows that the author first pays a tribute of reverence to
the local god of Memphis, Ptah, Avhom he styles the " lord of fish,"
and the " creator of wheat and barley," and of whom he says with
reference to the well-known attribute of Ptah as the great artificer,
" inactivity is the abomination of his fingers," i.e., the fingers of the
god hate idleness. He then goes on to mention Khnemu, the local
god of the First Cataract, wherein the sources of the Nile were at
one time believed to be situated, and styles him " the bringer of
" food and provisions, the creator of all good things, the lord of all
" choice and pleasant meats, who maketh the herb to grow for the
" use of the cattle, who filleth the storehouses and heapeth up high
" [corn] in the granaries, who payeth heed to the poor and needy,
" who maketh to grow crops which are sufficient for the desires of
" all men and yet is not diminished thereby, and whose strength is
" a shield." Now the author of the hymn goes on to declare that
THE ATTRIBUTES OF HAPI 147
the true Ha]3i, or god of the Nile, " cannot be figured in stone, he
is not to be seen in the images on which are set the crowns of the
south and the north with their uraei, offerings cannot be made to
him, he cannot be brought forth from his secret places, his dwell-
ing-place is not to be found out, he is not to be found in the
shrines which are inscribed with texts, there is no habitation
which is sufficiently large for him to dwell in, and the heart [of
man] is unable to depict him." ^
The being here referred to is a physical and not an ethical
god, and the simplest and, from this point of view, most natural
explanation of these remarkable statements is that they are intended
to describe the inaccessibility both of the Nile-god and of his shrine.
The fact, however, remains that the declaration of the almighty
strength and inscrutability, and invisibility, and the impossibility
of a description of the power which moves the Nile-god being
made by man in writing, or in drawing, or in sculpture, proves the
existence in the minds of the Egyptian writers of a lofty conception
of the attributes of God.
But side by side with the fundamental ideas of Horus and Ra
and the conceptions which were at the root of the worship of these
gods, there existed in the minds of the Egyptians a firm and
continuous belief in the god Osiris, who held a position in the
Egyptian religion which was quite distinct from that held by
any other god. About his origin nothing can be said, but there
is no reason for doubting that he was a god of the indigenous
inhabitants of Egypt, and that his worship was firmly established
in the country before the dynastic period. He was from the
earliest times associated with the doctrine of immortality, and was,
the writer believes, the symbol of monotheism in Egypt. It is
impossible to say, or even to suggest, what was the original form
of his worship, but we know that in the archaic period one great
centre of his cult was at Abydos, and from the fact that he was
included in the ixLut^ or company of gods of Heliopolis, we may
conclude that he was a very important god of Tattu, or of Busiris,
in the Delta, and that his sanctuary was much visited by the
peoples thereof. Under the Vth Dynasty, as we have already
^ A transcript of tMs text will be found in my First Steps in Egyptian, p. 208.
148 OSIRIS, LORD OF TATTU
seen, he was regarded as the judge of the dead, and it is clear that
he was also the god of the dead par excellence ; but it must be
noted that the priests of Ra formed at that time the predominant
priesthood of Egypt, and therefore care was taken to assign to
Osiris a position inferior to that of Ra in heaven. When the Vlth
Dynasty of kings came to an end the power of the priesthood of
Ra was greatly diminished, and the worship of Osiris grew and
prospered. It is unnecessary to trace here step by step the
growth of the cult of the god until the period of the XVIIIth
Dynasty, and it will be sufficient to say that between the Vlth and
the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty nearly all the attributes of the
Sun-god Ra were transferred to Osiris, and the name of Ra is
joined to that of Osiris, just as in much earlier times it was joined
to Tem and Heru-khuti to indicate the compound gods Ra-Tem
and Ra-Heru-khuti. Thus in Chapter cxxx. of the Booh of the
Dead ^ the deceased says, " I shall not be turned back in the
"horizon, for I am Ra-Osiris," and this passage is a proof that
quite early in the XVIIIth Dynasty Osiris was considered to be
a solar god. In Chapter xvii. (1. 110 ff.) the deceased is made
to say, " I am the God-Soul which dwelleth in the Twin-gods,
On this the question follows, " What does this
" mean ? " to which we have the answer, '' It hath reference to
" Osiris when he goeth into Tattu ^ and findeth there the soul of
'• Ra ; there one god embraceth the other, and the divine Souls
" spring into being within the Twin-gods." These lines of text are
illustrated by a very interesting vignette in the Papyrus of Ani
(see sheets 7-10), wherein we see a pylon-shaped building between
the double ^ ft , which represents Tattu, and upon it stand the god
Ra, in the form of a hawk with a solar disk upon his head, and
Osiris in the form of a human-headed hawk, wearing the White
Crown. The two gods face each other in Tattu, and, according to
the text, were absorbed or merged each in the other ; thus Osiris
obtained the attributes and characteristics of the Snn-god Ra, but
was supposed at the same time to retain all his own peculiar
attributes.
^ Papyrus of Nu, Chap, cxxx., 1. 18.
- Either Mendes in the Delta, or the heavenly Mendes.
IDENTITY OF OSIRIS AND RA 149
The view here given is that which Avas favoured by the priests
of Thebes who, however, only reproduced that which they had
borrowed from the priests of Heliopolis, and having gained
currency in the theological colleges of the South, it spread
among the people to such an extent that almost every great city
possessed a sanctuary dedicated to Osiris. A very important
hymn to Osiris, which is certainly as old as the period of the
XVIIIth Dynasty, shows us how this god assimilated to himself
the old solar gods, and how he became Ra. His holy double {^ ka)
was said to live in Mendes, he was the god who dwelt in Sekhem
(i.e., Horus), the lord of Qerert (i.e., the Underworld), the holy
one in Memphis, the lord of the temple of Hermopolis, the local
gods of which were Thoth and his j^ciut, or company, and he was
declared to be the " soul of Ra " and the very body of this god,
A„^^^ ^5 °^ 2^^=:^ -il . His essence was that of the primeval
god Nu, and he was the great spirit and divine body in heaven.
He was supposed to iight and to vanquish the traditional fiend
Seba, who dared to wage war against Ra, and he was the stablisher
of rio:ht and truth, madt, throus-hout the world. He made
the earth with his own hands, and its winds, and its vegetation,
and feathered fowl, and fish, and cattle and other quadrupeds, and
to him belonged by right the mountains and the desert land
throughout the world. The lands of Egypt rejoiced^ to crown
him upon his throne like his father Ra. The Great and the Little
Companies of the gods loved him, he was the leader of every god,
and the brother of the stars. Finally, as a proof of the absolute
identity of Ra and Osiris may be quoted the opening lines of
Chapter clxxxi. of the Booh of the Dead, which read : — " Homage
" to thee, 0 governor of Amentet, Un-nefer, the lord of Ta-tchesert,
" 0 thou who risest like Ra ! Verily I come to see thee and to
" rejoice at thy beauties. His disk is thy disk ; his rays are thy
"rays; his crown is thy crown; his majesty is thy majesty;. his
" risings are thy risings : his beauty is thy beauty ; the awe which
" is his is the awe which is thine ; his odour is thy odour ; his hall
^ See tlie text, with a transliteration and translation, in my First Steps in
Egyptian, p. 179 ff.
150 OSIRIS AND IMMORTALITY
" is thy hall ; his seat is thy seat ; his throne is thy ^throne ; his
" heir is thy heir ; his ornaments are thy omaments ; his command
" is thy command ; his mystery is thy mystery ; his things are
" thy things ; his knowledge is thy knowledge ; his attributes of
" majesty are thy attributes of majesty ; his magical powers are
" thy magical powers ; he died not and thou shalt not die ; he was
" not vanquished by his enemies and thou shalt not be vanquished
'' by thine enemies ; no evil thing befell him, and no evil thing
" shall befall thee for ever and for ever."
In such terms did the Egyptians extol the greatness and
power of Osiris, but they make no mention of the aspect of the
god which endeared him to countless generations of Egyptians.
From hundreds of funeral and other texts we learn that Osiris was
held to be partly divine and partly human, that is to say, unlike
any other Egyptian god he possessed two natures, and two bodies,
the one divine and the other human, and two doubles, the one
divine and the other human, and two souls, the one divine and the
other human, and two spirits, the one divine and the other human.
The human body, according to the Egyptian tradition recorded by
Plutarch,^ once lived upon earth and was put to death in a cruel
manner, and was mutilated by his brother ; but his feminine
counterpart, Isis, succeeded in obtaining from Thoth the knowledge
of certain words and ceremonies, and having learnt from him the
proper manner of reciting these words, and how to perform these
ceremonies, by means of them she raised up to life the dead body
of Osiris. The god Thoth was the personification of the intelligence
of the whole company of the gods, and thus the words Avhich he
taught Isis were divine, and they were, presumably, names by the
utterance of which the gods themselves maintained their existence.
Now when Osiris had been raised from the dead he did not con-
tinue his life upon earth, but passed into the region of the Under-
world, where he became the judge and god of the dead and, as we
have seen, was made the possessor of all the attributes of the Sun-
god Ra and of the great One God. But, the Egyptians in the
early ages thought. Since Osiris was raised to life by the words and
ceremonies which Thoth taught Isis, and since Osiris has gained
^ De Iside et Osiride, ed. Didot (Scripta Moralia, t. iii., pp. 429-469), § xii. fE.
OSmiS AND IMMORTALITY 151
immortality by means of them, these same words and ceremonies
will raise us to life and give us immortality also. Their priests
therefore invented a number of magical ceremonies, which they
led the people to believe were identical with those which Isis had
performed at the bidding of Thoth, and they strung together
magical words which they declared to be those which had raised
Osiris to life, and the words were recited and the ceremonies
performed by priests who appear to have dressed themselves in
such a way as to resemble the divine beings who were concerned
with the resurrection of Osiris.
At a later period, however, the Egyptians put their trust in
Osiris himself, and addressed their prayers directly to him as the
Being, partly divine and partly human, who had raised himself
from the dead without having seen corruption, and who had
bestowed upon his own earthly body, by means of his divine
nature, the gift of an everlasting life which it enjoyed in an incor-
ruptible and glorified form in heaven. The Egyptians " loved life
" and hated death," and they worshipped Osiris as the Great God
who not only possessed the power of maintaining his own life
indefinitely — which was supposed to be the chief distinguishing
characteristic of a god — but also of giving mortals the power to
live after death in this world. What Osiris had effected for
himself he could efiect for man ; hence Thothmes III. is made to
address the god in these words, " Homage to thee, 0 my divine
" father Osiris, thou hast thy being with thy members. Thou
" didst not decay, thou didst not turn into worms, thou didst not
" rot away, thou didst not become corruption, thou didst not
" putrefy. ... I shall not decay, I shall not rot, I shall not
" putrefy. ... I shall have my being, I shall live, I shall germinate,
" I shall wake up in joeace. . . . My body shall be stablished, and
" it shall neither fall into ruin nor be destroyed off this earth."
Because the human body of Osiris rose from the dead, the body of
every man could rise from the dead also, but man lacked what
Osiris possessed, i.e., the divine body, soul, spirit, and nature,
which had brought about the resurrection of his human body, soul,
spirit, and nature. In the earliest times of the worship of the
^ Booh of the Dead, Cliap. cliv.
152 OSIRIS AND IMMORTALITY
god the Egyptians, as we have seen, invented magical words and
ceremonies with the object of supplying the human body with the
power necessary to raise itself from the dead, but as time went on
they realized that both words and ceremonies were incapable of
giving eternal life to the dead, and that only Osiris himself could
give them that which they so earnestly desired, i.e., everlasting
life, by supplying to their dead earthly bodies the power to rise
again, a power which he himself possessed. Beyond all doubt the
Egyptians realized that Osiris was the only God who could make
them to inherit life everlasting, and that he alone had the power
of making " men and women to be born again." ^
We have already seen how the attributes of the great God
who created all things were ascribed to him, and we now see that
he was regarded as the god who had the power to vanquish death
by raising up the bodies of the dead in glorified forms, and to
reunite to them their souls and their spirits, and to give them
eternal life in his dominions. These things were declared of no
other god, and no other god united in his person the attributes of
an ethical god, and an almighty, creative god, and a god who was
the vivifier of the dead. The conception of Osiris included the
conceptions of every other god, but the conception of no other god
included that of Osiris during the period of the highest thought
and civilization of Egypt. The Sun-god Ra, was called " One,"
a few other gods who were made to usurp his attributes were also
each called " One ; " this in the earliest times was natural enough,
because the Egyptians were only acquainted with one Sun, and
whether the physical body of the sun as a symbol of the power
which moved it or that power itself is referred to in the hymns
matters little, for " One " was a suitable epithet both for the sun
and its god. In connexion with this matter it is important to
remember the unique position which Osiris occupies in the Booh
of the Dead and in funeral texts generally. In the texts of the
Vth Dynasty we find that Osiris was believed " to weigh words,"
i.e., to inquire into the various words and deeds of the lives of
1. 15.
OSIRIS AND IMMORTALITY 153
men when their souls left their bodies, in order that he might
reward them according to their merits.
In later times this idea was illustrated by the vignette in
which the heart of the deceased was seen being weighed in the
Great Scales against the symbol of Maat, or the Law and right
and truth ; at a still later period, when the heart was the symbol
of the conscience, this scene became associated with the examina-
tion of the words and deeds of the dead which took place in the
Hall of Maati. In the large scenes of the weighing of the heart
which were prefixed to the finest papyri of the Booh of the Dead of
the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties, and which were accompanied
by suitable hymns and texts, the ceremony takes place in the
presence of the gods of the Great and Little companies, but in the
Hall of Maati the Forty-Two Assessors are substituted for the
gods. In both cases, however, the great judge of all is Osiris, and
it was to him that all Egyptians returned after death. Why the
Assessors were forty-two in number cannot be said, but it is very
probable, as has been before suggested, that each of them repre-
sented a district in Egypt in the earliest dynastic times, and that
the Hall of Maati thus became a meeting place for the Assessors of
the whole country when Osiris sat to judge the dead. It is,
moreover, impossible to say why certain assessors were supposed
to hear confessions about the non-committal of certain sins, and we
have no knowledge of the circumstances which gave rise to their
selection and to their admission into the Hall of Judgment. Some
of them appear to have been originally the gods of cities, and
others gods of nomes, but, on the other hand, a few of them are
deities who, in the earliest times, were apparently hostile to the
dead. Failing full information on the subject, the chief interest
which attaches to the Assessors and the Hall of Maati, in which
they sit, consists in the fact that the vignette proves how com-
pletely Osiris had gained the ascendancy over all the gods of
Egypt.
In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to trace the
development of the conception of a supreme being in Egypt, from
the earliest times to the period when Osiris became endowed with
many of the attributes now ascribed to God Almighty. There is
154 DEVELOPMENT OF MONOTHEISM
no doubt that in predynastic times the Egyptians worshipped
stocks, and stones, and animals, and plants, and trees, and that
they only arrived at the idea of gods which were partly animal and
partly man at the end of a long period of what is called in modem
times " gross idolatry." From the idea of animal-man gods they
advanced to the idea of a man-god, and finally their minds
developed the conception of monotheism. When we first gain any
definite knowledge of them we find that as a people they had put
away the worship of stocks and stones, and most of the things
which that worship implies, but that certain animals were held to be
sacred in certain cities, and that the literature contained allusions
to savage habits and practices, as we have already seen. As time
went on, many changes took place in the minds of the Egyptians
concerning their gods, but little variation was made in their
worship and ceremonial in the temples ; in other words, the spirit
of the religion changed whilst the observance of the letter remained
unchanged. Thus the forms of worship and the literature pre-
served a great deal which no one believed in except the commonest
folk, and in this way traces of the lowest forms of religion were
preserved and handed down to posterity. The Egyptians, after
the period of the IVth Dynasty, were the victims of conservatism
and conventionality, and, we might almost add, of the priesthoods
of Heliopolis and Thebes ; but for these powerful and wealthy
confraternities the history of the religion of Egypt would have
been very difi'erent. The conception of monotheism, which is so
clearly expressed in the moral precepts of the Early Empire, would
have developed rapidly, and in its growth it would have obliterated
the remains of the old and obsolete faiths which had crystallized,
and which existed in layers side by side with the higher doctrine.
But the decay which set in after the IVth Dynasty, and which
stifled the development of painting and sculpture, also attacked
the religion of the country, and the noble conception of mono-
theism, with its cult of the unseen, was unable to compete with the
worship of symbols, which could be seen and handled, until the
time when Osiris was recognized as the One God, who was also the
giver of eternal life. The Egyptians were unlike other nations,
and similarly their religion and their gods were unlike the religion
EGYPTIAN RELIGION 155
and the gods of other nations ; and as they must not be judged by
the standard of any one foreign nation belonging to any one period,
so their religion and their gods must not be judged by the standard
of the religion and gods of any later civilized nation. We can
only know what the Egyptians thought and believed by reading
and studying the texts which they wrote, and a final opinion on
their beliefs cannot be obtained until all their religious literature
has been published ; the general outline, however, of their religion
is clear enough, and it shows us that they possessed a good,
practical form of monotheism and a belief in immortality which
were already extremely ancient even in the days when the
Pyramids were built.*
( 156 )
CHAPTER IV
THE COMPANIONS OF THE GODS IN HEAVEN
IN the preceding chapters, Avhich are devoted to the considera-
tion of general questions concerning God and the gods, no
mention is made of the habitation of these divine beings or of their
companions. The texts of all periods are silent as to the exact
position of heaven, but it is certain that the Egyptians assigned to
it a place above the sky, and that they called it 2^ei ^__^ ; we must
distinguish between the meanings oi ijet ^ and nut , for the
former means " heaven," and the latter " sky." We may also
note that two skies are mentioned in the texts, i.e., , the day
sky, and , the night sky. The hieroglyphic for heaven and
sky represents a slab, each end of which rests on a support, and
we may assume that the primitive Egyptians believed that each
end of heaven rested upon a support (i.e., two mountains) ; out
of one mountain came the sun every morning, and into the other
he entered every night. The mountain of Sunrise was called
Bakhau, J ^^^ '^^ o-=» v\ , and the mountain of Sunset Manu,
«===^ c^Cb:0. In the earliest times the sky was divided into two
ODD ^
parts only, the East and the West, but later another division was
made, and heaven was split up into four parts, and each was
placed under the care of a god. The latter division was made
long before the Pyramid Texts were written, for in them it is
always assumed that the flat slab of iron which formed the sky,
and therefore the floor of the abode of the gods, was rectangular,
and that each corner of it rested upon a pillar, | . That this is a
very ancient view concerning the sky is proved by the hieroglyphic
THE FOUR PILLARS OF HEAVEN 157
'jjjy', which is used in texts to determine words for rain, storm, and
the like; here we have a picture of the sky falling and being
pierced by the four pillars of heaven.
At a later period, the four quarters of heaven were believed
to be under the direction of four gods, and the four pillars of the
sky were poetically described as the four sceptres which they held
in their hands. Thus in the text of Teta (1. 233) it is said, " As
" Teta goeth towards them they bring unto him the four gods
" who stand with the sceptres of heaven, and they repeat the name
" of Teta to Ra, and they take up his name to Horus of the two
" horizons." ^ In several texts ^ allusion is made to the lifting up of
heaven upon its four pillars, e.g., ^ -^ ^ ^_^ <^ ^ SH^IlII "**" '
and in one place the four pillars are said to support that on which
the four heavens rest, IT|| ^ -^ ^^; at a comparatively late
period the idea arose that the sky needed support in the middle as
well as at the corners, and the god who acted as the prop was
called Hell, MM- According to one myth which represented the
heavens in the form of the head of a man, and which made the sun
and the moon to be his eyes, the supports of heaven were supposed
to be formed of his long flowing hair, and thus we have in the text
of Unas (1. 473) an allusion to the " four elder spirits who dwell
" in the locks of hair of Horus, who stand in the eastern part of
" heaven grasping their sceptres." ^ The gods Avho grasped as
sceptres the four pillars of heaven, which eventually became the
/^wvv\ /wwv\ AA/ww V .y\ I J J '— ^ A^A/V\^ >. ^ II 1 1 I _ti I I I U -U.
^m^m F=^'J^f' — ^ — Clj] — ^ il^-^JL
- See Brugsch, Worterbuch, p, 1351.
I I I
158 THE FOLLOAVERS OF HORUS
four cardinal points, were Amset, n ^^^ U^, god of the southern
point, Hap, | D A'^='^=» the god of the northern point, Tua-
mutef, >ic ^\ '^ , the god of the eastern point, and Qebhsennuf,
jy y II y 2^.=^, the god of the western point. These four gods played
a prominent part in connexion with the deceased in the Pyramid
Texts, where they are called the " children of Horus," ^ for at one
time they are called upon to bring him the boat of the Eye of
Tem, ^. ^^, which is on the Lake of Kha, and at another
they are exhorted to protect his life by their magical power and
amulets, I '^ J> — . ■=im-' ^ and finally the deceased is said to become
one of these four gods (Pepi I. 1. 672), ^ ^ ^ 1 1 1 ° ^ 111 '
The duties which are assigned to them as funereal gods in the Book
of the Dead will be described later on.
Chief among the dwellers in heaven was the god Ra, who is
said to sit upon an iron throne [the sides of which were orna-
mented] with the faces of lions and feet which resembled the hoofs
of bulls.^ Round about Ra, whether walking or sitting, were the
gods who were " in his train," and these formed the nucleus of the
inhabitants of heaven. Next to these came certain companies of
the gods, and as the whole universe was divided into three portions,
namely, heaven, earth, and the Tuat, or Underworld, and each
portion had its own gods, we may assume that a place was reserved
for them in the heaven of the Egyptians. But this heaven also
contained several classes of beings, first and foremost among whom
may be mentioned the Shesu-Heru, or Shemsu-Heru, a name
whicli appears in the Pyramid Texts under the form fl ^^ -%■ -%• _%
(Pepi L, 1. 166), and may be translated "Followers of Horus."
They are, in fact, beings who followed Horus, the son of Isis, in
heaven, where they waited upon him, and performed his behests,
|||o^=^, Pepi I., 1.593.
2 Pepi I., 1. 444. 3 lud,^ 11. 309, 310.
THE ASHEMU AND HENMEMET 159
and when necessary defended and protected him. They occupied
a position of great importance among the celestial hosts, and are
mentioned in such a way as to suggest that^they were almost equal
to the gods ; thus Pepi I. (1. 166) is said to " pacify them," but on
the other hand it was they who " washed him, and who recited on
" his behalf the Chapter of those who come forth, and [the Chapter
" of those who] rise up." ^ Next may be mentioned the Ashemu,
i-Tv-i ^v V 'A'^'^' ^ class of beings whose characteristics are
not known, and who in the text of Teta (1. 327) are referred to in
connexion with the sehliemu. The word dsliem is usually supposed
to mean the " form in which a god is visible," but it must have
another and an older meaning. The Henmemet, \ ^ ^^ ^v"^ m?^
or HAMEMET, appear to have been a class of beings who either were
to become, or had already been, human beings, but the Egyptians
themselves seem to have had no very clear idea about their
attributes, and the passages in the Theban Booh of the Dead in
which they are mentioned have been understood in different ways
by different scholars.
In a hymn it is said of Ra, " when he riseth the rehliit (i.e.,
"rational beings) live, and the hamemet, ffl ^ ^ Jj i, exult in
" him " : Osiris is called "fiord of] the hamemet, m 1\ 1\ "^ , in
" Kher-aha " ; and the deceased says in Chapter xlii. of the Booh of
the Dead, " And shall do me hurt neither men, nor gods, |
"nor spirits, '^^ 0 ^ ^ i, nor the dead (or damned), o V\ ^
I I r
'■ ^ %\'
" nor the pdt, -^ — a ^ J) '' ^^^ ^^® rehhit (i.e., rational beings), nor
"the hamemet." Elsewhere the deceased prays "that the com-
" pany of the gods may hold their peace whilst the hamemet talk
" with me " ; ^ and it seems from a passage in an inscription of
^ Compare tlie variant i 'v^ i ' □ Yr^ "W^ — — y
I2,
2 Teta, 1. 95.
2 See the list of passages given in my Vocabulary to the Booh of the Dead,
p. 205.
160 THE AFAU, UTENNU, AND SETU
Hatshepset ^ as if in the latter part of the dynastic period the word
had come to mean a class of men and women, especially as it is
determined by the signs ^ 3, which usually indicate a number of
human beings. Thus Rameses III. speaks of " all the gods and
" goddesses of the South and the North, and all men, and all the
'^ pat, and all the rekhit, and all the hamemet" ; finally, that the
hamemet were believed to live upon grain is proved by the passage
in a hymn to Amen-Ra wherein this god is said to be the " maker
" of the green herb which giveth life to the beasts and cattle, and
*' of the plant of life, vww^ i^ _ ^il , of the hamemeV ^ Of the
^ ^1 1 # I I I
characteristics of the classes of beings called Aea, ^^ ^^^ ,
and Utennu, v\ av^^aa Vi. ^^^, who are mentioned in the text
of Pepi IL (1. 951), we know nothing, and the same must be said
of the Set beings, H ^ ^^^, who were, however, divided into
two classes, the Upper and the Lower, ^ % ^ Y^. The
following extract will show how these beings are mentioned : —
" 0 great heaven, stretch out thy hand to Pepi Nefer-ka-Ra !
" 0 mighty heaven, stretch out thy hand to Pepi Nefer-ka-Ra, for
"Pepi is thy divine hawk, 8(1^=^^ 1 TT* ^^V^ ^^^*^ come
" having come forth into heaven, and he hath penetrated Qebhu ;
" Pepi hath paid homage to his father, and he riseth like Horus.
" Pepi hath come to the place where he is, and he (his father)
" granteth to him to rise like the sun, and he stablisheth for him his
" two divine utchats, T ^^^^ ^S^S? ^^^ when Pepi cometh forth
'' with him, great like Horus, son of Nut, and like the child with
" the lock of hair (i.e., Harpocrates), and smiting the crowns, and
" giving orders to the gods Utennu, the Aea gods follow Pepi, and
" those who are in the heavens and on the earth come to him pay-
" ing homage, together with the two uraei guides, ' U ^ '=' i^ le,, >
" and the jackals, and the spirits, and the Set beings, both the
■AJkt-lkk-^li^Tr::-!
AA/V\AA
^ w
£5^
%5
I jCtj n AAAAAA -- |llllllllH| |— I
/wvws r>^\ 1^1 ^ ^ w^N '-I , 2 E(J, Grebaut, section vi.
■ 1 I I I I O j^ ODD />A/vw
THE WATCHERS OF PE AND NEKHEN 161
'' Upper and the Lower." It is possible that the Set beings may-
have been of like nature to the god Set, who was the brother and
associate of Horns in the earliest times, but who in later times lost
his position as a god and became the type and symbol of all evil.
In addition to these the text of Pepi 11. (line 849) mentions
the " Watchers of the city of Pe," and the " Watchers of the city of
Nekhen," ^^ C3a R ^ D © ^^ c^iz: fi ^ o ® ©, from which we
may assume that certain cities were supposed to enjoy the protec-
tion of a number of gods whose duty it was to look after their
interests in heaven. We know from several passages in the Booh
of the Dead that groups of gods were called the " souls " of such
and such cities, and it is clear from the inscriptions that each city
and town possessed a soul which had, like the soul of a man after
death, the power to wander about at will. Thus on a wall in the
temple Avhich Cleopatra VII. built at Erment (now destroyed),
was a scene in Avhich the great queen was depicted in the act of
giving birth to her son Caesarion. The goddess Neith holds up
the queen's arms, and the midwife Netchemtchemt, | f ^ III ? receives
the boy in the presence of several gods and goddesses. Now in the
upper part of the relief were two groups of souls of cities, seven on
the right hand and seven on the left, who were supposed to have
been present at the birth of the child, and to have taken him under
their protection. Among the cities represented are Thebes, Ant,
I g , Het, ra@, Qeset, Unt, xlhet, Hetep, Uauaa, -^j^| ^ ,
etc.^ Each soul is in the form of a human-headed hawk, and each
has on its head horns and a disk, X^, in the front of Avhich is a
uraeus.
Want of space does not allow of the mention of many obscure
beings who are called gods, and who are practically innumerable,
and we therefore pass on to refer to the spirits and souls, etc., of
the righteous men and women who once lived upon this earth. To
these, as well as to the divine beings, was given the name " living
ones," ■¥■■¥■■?■ ^, as may be seen from the passage in Unas (line 206),
which reads, " Hail, Unas, behold thou hast not departed dead
1 See Lepsius, DenJcmdIer, iv. pi. 60.
M
162 THE LIVING ONES
" ("^^^o ^1 (|\ but as one living ("T J) thou hast gone to
" take thy seat upon the throne of Osiris. Thy sceptre ah
" (^ fl J Y) ^^ "^ ^^y hand, and thou givest commands unto the
"living ones; thy sceptre mehes \^^^^^^y\)y ^^^ ^hy sceptre
^^ Nehehet ^/^vaaaO jL=.j are in thy hands, and thou givest thine
" orders to those whose habitations are hidden." When king Teta
is in heaven the seat of his heart is declared to "be among the
" living ones on this earth for ever," ^^^ TTi V ^v "^^^ '"' 2! "
We have in this latter passage a proof that the Egyptians con-
ceived it possible for a man to attain to all the attributes of a
divine being, or, let us say, of an angel, and at the same time to
enjoy an existence upon earth as well as in heaven. This idea
probably arose because they wished to provide a future for the
dead body just as they provided a habitation in heaven for the
spirits and souls of the righteous. Heaven and earth were comple-
ments each of the other, the gods of heaven were the complements
of the gods of earth, and vice versa, and the existence of the
spiritual and mental attributes of man with the gods in heaven
was a complement of his continued life after death in some region
on this earth. The Pyramid Texts show that the opinion of the
Egyptians about the number and functions of the constituent parts
of his economy, both physical and spiritual, changed as time went
on and as they ascended the various grades which led up to the
high platform of their civilization, and the result of the change, or
rather changes, made itself manifest in their religious compositions.
In the early predynastic period they thought that the life after
death was a mere continuation of the life in this world, and when
they had placed some food in or on the graves of their dead they
were satisfied.
But they knew that the body of a man in the new life could
■¥"?"?-, Pepil., 11. 545, 54G.
cinn^ D
THE SPIRITS AND SOULS OF THE DEAD 163
not be like that which he possessed on earth, although its form
might be similar, and they therefore assumed the existence of
another body. In his dreams the Egyptian saw a figure of himself
or a duplicate, engaged in various occupations, and to this figure
he gave the name ha, ^ ; it was born with a man, it remained
within him, usually inoperative, and survived him at death. It
never left the body in the grave or tomb, and the offerings which
were made in the halls of the tombs in all periods were intended
to maintain its existence. Nevertheless the ha of Horus, J=^ ^ ,
is in heaven (Teta, line 88), and also the ha of Teta (line 94), which
is adjured to bring that which the king might eat with it ; and as
the hau of men and gods lived in heaven so there lived there also the
hau of cities, e.g., of the city of Pe, vi^Jz^J:^ (Teta, line 88),
and the " lords of hau praised Ra both in the dominions of Horus
" and in the dominions of Set." ^ King Unas is declared to be the
" chief of the doubles," "^ ^^ , and he is said to '' gather together
"hearts for the great wise chief" (Unas, line 395). Men and gods
alike possessed shadows, and they also had an existence in heaven
after the death of the bodies to which they belonged. When Unas
had eaten the bodies of the gods, and had absorbed all their souls
and spirits, it is said that the " flame of Unas is in their bones, for
"their soul is with Unas, and their shadows are with their forms"
(Unas, line 523, Teta, line 330). The souls and the spirits of men
had their abode in heaven with the gods, and the religious texts of
all periods are so full of allusions to this fact that it is unnecessary to
quote examples; the soul, ha, '^^, is usually depicted in the
form of a hawk with a human head, and the spirit, hhic, '^^j 9,s 9
heron. Related intimately to the body, but with undefined
functions, so far as we can discover, was the sehJiem, I ^ ^,^^ Yj ^
word which has been translated "power," and "form," and even
" vital force ; " and finally the glorified body, to which had been
[1 ^ l\ SI o n '^ , Teta, 1. 192.
164 THE SAHU OR SPIRITUAL BODY
united the soul, and spirit, and power, and name of the deceased,
had its abode in heaven. This new body of the deceased in heaven
was called sdim, u a | v^ g , and may for all practical purposes
be termed the spiritual body ; it grew out of the dead body and
was called into existence by the ceremonies which were performed,
and the AYords which were recited by the priests on the day when
the mummified body was laid in the tomb.
Thus we see that the denizens of heaven consisted of the
Great, and the Little, and the other companies of the gods ; and of
a large number of beings, who may for convenience be called the
"inferior gods," and of several orders of beings who possessed
some characteristic which caused the Egyptians to assume that
they were divine ; and of the shadows, doubles, souls, spirits,
powers, hearts, and spiritual bodies of those who had lived upon
this earth. In Chapter Ixiv. of the Boole of the Bead (line 21) is a
curious statement to the effect that the " spirits are four million,
"six hundred and one thousand, two hundred," ''^^ ® y ^ '
^r D ^ ^^ T ^ , in number, but Avhether this is intended to
be an enumeration of the spirits of heaven, or of the spirits which
once inhabited human bodies, cannot be said. Of the occupations
of the denizens of heaven little is known, but to some of them was
assigned the task of directing the affairs of this world, others
directed the operations of the celestial bodies, and others were
attached to the trains of the great gods, and accompanied them in
their triumphant courses through the heavens. All these sang
praises to Ra as the king and chief of the gods, and they sang
hymns to him describing his greatness and glory just as men sang
songs of joy to the sun when he rose and set. The gods nourished
themselves with celestial food which was supplied to them by the
Eye of Horus, that is to say, they supported their existence on the
rays of light which fell from the sun which lit up heaven, and they
became beings whose bodies were Avholly of light. According to
one myth the gods themselves lived upon a " wood, or plant of
life," AA/w^^ -Y- (I'epi I., line 4o0), which seems to have grown
near the great lake in Sekhet-hetep, round which they were wont
THE ABODE OF THE BLESSED 165
to sit/ but this idea belongs to the group of views which held that
the beatified dead lived in a beautiful, fertile region, where white
wheat and red barley grew luxuriantly to a great height, and where
canals were numerous and full of water, and where material enjoy-
ments of every kind could be found. In other places we read of
"bread of eternity," and "beer of eternity," i.e., bread and beer
which was supposed never to grow stale or to become spoiled,^ and
we also have mention of a heavenly fig-tree (^^^^ '^. J I), and a
heavenly vine (u W^)? ^^® fruit of which is eaten by the
beatified. The bread upon which the blessed fed themselves was
that bread which the Eye of Horus shed upon the branches of the
olive-tree, '=^^=^ ^"^'^'^ 71)V (Unas, line 200).
0
Finally, the blessed were arrayed in apparel similar to that which
was worn by the gods, but they also had white linen garments on
their bodies, and white sandals on their feet.
All these details show the simple character of the heaven
which the primitive Egyptian imagined, and prove that it was at
first intended to be nothing but the celestial complement of a
terrestrial farm or estate. He wished for a vine, and a fig-tree,
and an olive tree, for wheat wherewith to make bread, and for
barley Avherewith to brew beer ; he also desired clean white
garments and white sandals. His celestial homestead he expected
to be intersected with numerous canals, which would do away with
the necessity of laboriously drawing water from the celestial Nile
by means of some mechanical contrivance similar to the modern
shaduf ; the tillage would, of course, be provided for in the next
world by the gods, who would take care that the crops did not
fail. This simple material heaven is very different from the
3 Teta, 1. 288, Pepi I., 1. 442 and 1. 390.
166 THE ABODE OF THE BLESSED
heaven of the Hebrew and Muhammadan writers, with its sensual
and sensuous joys of every kind, and its luxurious meats, and
drinks, and delights. We know from one or two passages in the
Pyramid Texts that there were women in heaven just as there
were goddesses, but they are not spoken of as are the Hur al-hiyun
(houris), i.e., the women with large, black pupils of the eye set in
large whites, who are mentioned in Arabic descriptions of Paradise,
and they are not made to be one of the chief attractions of heaven.
As far as can be seen, the heaven of the Egyptians had no musical
instrument in it, and the only sounds heard in it must have
been the songs of the ministering gods and of the beatified when
they hymned the Great God. What the Egyj^tian gentleman who
lives on his own land in places remote from towns is now, the
Egyptian gentleman everywhere was then ; he loved to wash and
anoint himself, and having put on clean linen to sit in the sun in
the morning, and to bear himself with dignity, and to be treated
with respect by his neighbours and inferiors. He loved to have
corn, and wine, and oil in abundance, and a sufS.cient number of
slaves to minister to his wants and to maintain his dignity when he
moved about from villaofe to villaoje. He honoured his mother,
and usually married a very limited number of wives, among whom
might be a sister, or half-sister, or cousin, and he took great
interest in his male offspring ; we note in the Pyramid Texts that
the families of the deceased kings are never mentioned, and that
nothing is said about their wives, although Unas (lines Q)2S, 629) is
said to carry off women from their husbands, v_7 v-? vl7 ^^^ .. n pg
1 Awwv^ wheresoever he pleaseth, whensoever he pleaseth. On the
other hand, Isis is said to come to king Teta, who unites with
her, and the goddess having conceived like the star Sept gives
birth to Horus Sept,^ and in another passage Unas is said to have
H
^ , Teta, 1. 276.
THE ABODE OF THE BLESSED 167
become the husband of the goddess Mauit, and also of the young
woman who brought bread to him.^
But these beings were, after all, only the celestial waters
described under the forms of a goddess and a woman, and the
sensual idea conveyed by a literal interpretation of the text there-
fore disappears. The life of the primitive Egyptians in heaven
was as simple as their life upon earth, and their chief Avish was
to enjoy a state of comfortable and dignified peace, without war
and without tumult or strife. We hear nothing of a heaven with
a floor of white flour or musk, with pearls for stones, and trees
with trunks of gold, and houses covered with gold and silver, and
rivers of milk, and honey, and wine, and innumerable maidens
with bodies made of pure musk, Avho live in pavilions made of
hollow pearls and are free from all defects of their sex. The idea
of the means to be employed for reaching the heaven of the
Egyptians was as primitive as that of the heaven itself, for the
Egyptians thought that they could climb on to the iron floor of
heaven by going to the mountains, the tops of which it touched
in some places. At a later period it was thought that a ladder
was necessary, certainly for those who did not live near the
mountains whose tops touched heaven's floor, and in many tombs
models of ladders were placed so that the deceased might make
use of them at the proper time. The god Osiris even was believed
to have needed a ladder, and to have been helped to ascend it by
Ra and Horus, or by Horus and Set. The idea of the need of a
ladder was deeply seated in the Egyptian mind, for when the
custom of placing models of ladders in the tombs ceased, they drew
AAAAAA
r=^
(SI ^ A P 0 ^ (SI ^ P J^
rO % 0 "^ , Unas, 1. 181.
168 THE SEKHET-HETEP
pictures of them in the papyri of the Book of the Dead which Avere
placed in tombs/ The model of the ladder, y 'vv B , inaqet,
could be made as long as the deceased wished by reciting certain
words of power over it, and by similar means the picture of the
ladders given in the papyri could be turned into real ladders.
The above mentioned facts will show that in his conception
of heaven the Egyptian never succeeded in freeing himself wholly
from material ideas and the wish to make sure of eternal life and
happiness by means of his own acts. In the latter part of the
dynastic period the conception of heaven became more material,
and at length, if we may judge by the texts, the belief in the
resurrection of the actual physical body prevailed, and the life
after death was regarded as nothing but a continuation of the life
upon earth. Thus the title of Chapter ex. of the Boole of the Dead
declares that the text which follows will give a man the power of
" doing everything even as a man doeth upon earth." As a result
of this view the deceased prays thus : — " May I become a Ichu
" (spirit) therein, i.e., in the Sekhet-hetep or Elysian Fields, may I
" eat therein, may I drink therein, may I plough therein, may I
" reap therein, may I fight therein, may I make love therein, may
" my words be mighty therein, may I never be in a state of
" servitude therein, but may I be in authority therein." He also
wishes ttat he may have with him in Sekhet-hetep his father and
mother, and presumably his wife and children, and also tlie god
or gods of his city, but in these materialistic passages we find no
mention of his desire to worship and praise the gods of heaven,
or even the Great God who is said to '^grow" therein. Thus in
another place in the same chapter he says, " 0 ITakh, I have
" entered into thee, I have eaten my bread, I have gotten the
" mastery over choice pieces of the flesh of oxen and of feathered
" fowl, and the birds of Shu have been given to me. I have
" plunged into the lakes of Tchesert ; behold me, for all filth hath
" departed from me. The Great God groweth therein, and behold,
" I have found [food therein] ; I have snared feathered fowl and
" I feed upon the best of them. ... I have seen the Osiris [my
^ See the Papyrus of Ani^ 2nd edition, pi. 22.
THE SEKHET-HETEP 169
" father], and I have gazed upon my mother, and I have made
'• love." In every division of the Elysian Fields the deceased, in
the later period of dynastic history, found some fresh material
pleasure, but, in spite of all its inconsistencies and his materialism,
the heaven of the Egyptians was better and purer than that of
many more modern nations which are credited with higher intelli-
gence and better civilization.
( 170 )
CHAPTER V
THE UNDERWORLD
IN the chapters on God and the gods it has already been said
that the Egyptians in the earliest times believed that the
gods were moved by the same passions as men and grew old and
died like men ; later, however, they believed that it was only the
bodies of the gods which died, and they therefore provided in
their religious system a place for the souls of dead gods, just as
they provided a place for the souls of dead men and women. The
writers of the relio:ious texts were not all ao-reed as to the exact
position of this place, but from first to last, whatever might be the
conceptions entertained about it, it Avas called Tuat, i<: ^^ •
This word is commonly rendered '' underworld," but it must be
distinctly understood that the Egyptian word does not imply that
it was situated under our world, and that this rendering is only
adopted because the exact signification of the name Tuat is
unknown. The word is a very old one, and expresses a conception
which was originated by the primitive Egyptians, and was probably
unknown to their later descendants, who used the word without
troubling to define its exact meaning. To render Tuat by " hell "
is also incorrect, because " hell " conveys to modern peoples ideas
Avhich Avere foreign to the Egyptians of most schools of religious
thought. Whatever may be the moral ideas of the Tuat as a place
of punishment for the wicked in later times, it is clear that at the
outset it was regarded as the place through which the dead Sun-
god Ra passed after his setting or death each evening on his
journey to that portion of the sky in which he rose anew each
morning. In the XlXth Dynasty we know that the Tuat was
believed to be situated not below our earth, but away beyond the
THE TUAT 171
earth, probably in the sky, and certainly near the heaven wherein
the gods dwelt ; it was the realm of Osiris who, according to many
texts, judged the dead there, and reigned over the gods of the
dead as well as over the dead themselves.
The Tuat was separated from this world by a chain or range
of mountains, and consisted of a great valley, which was shut
in closely on each side by mountains; the mountains on one
side divided the valley from this earth, and those on the other
divided it from heaven. We may note in passing that the
Hebrews separated the blessed from the damned by a wall,^ and
that Lazarus was separated from Dives in hell by a " great gulf," ^
and that the Muhammadans divide heaven from hell by the
mountain i\-l-A'raf, «-j>1^c-^l,^ which, however, cannot be of any
great breadth because those who stand upon it are supposed to be
able to hold converse both with the blessed and the damned. It
is pretty certain that both Hebrews and Muhammadans borrowed
their ideas of the partition between heaven and hell from the
Egyptian Tuat, but there is no authority in the texts for the
Muhammadan view that it is a sort of limbo or purgatory for
those who are too o-ood for earth but not o-ood enouoj'h for heaven.
Those who stand on Al-A'raf are said to be angels in the form of
men, 23atriarchs, prophets, and saints, and those whose good deeds
on earth were exactly counterbalanced by their evil deeds, and
who therefore merit neither heaven nor hell. Through the valley
of the Tuat runs a river, which is the counterpart of the Nile in
Egypt and of the celestial Nile in heaven, and on each bank of
this river lived a vast number of monstrous beasts, and devils, and
fiends of every imaginable kind and size, and among them were
large numbers of evil spirits which were hostile to any being that
invaded the valley.
On the sarcophagus of Seti I. is a representation of the
Creation, which is reproduced on p. 204, and from it we see that the
Tuat is likened to the body of Osiris, which is bent round like
a hoop in such a Avay that his toes touch the back of his head,
^ See Eiseumenger, " Was die Juden von der Hollen lelireii " (Entdecktes
Judenthum, torn, ii., p. 322 if.
- St. Luke xvi. 26. ^ See Kur'an, Siu'a vii.
172 THE TUAT AND AMENTET
On the top of his head stands the goddess Nut, who supports with
both hands the disk of the sun. From this we may conchide both
that Osiris is the personification of the Tuat, and that the Tuat
is a narrow circular valley Avhich begins where the sun sets in the
west, and ends where he rises in the east. The Tuat was a terrible
place by reason of the monsters and devils with which it was filled,
and its horrors Avere increased by the entire absence of light from
it, and the l3eings therein groped about in the darkness of deep
night. That the Tuat should be a place of blackness and gloom
is quite natural when once we have realized that it was the path
of the dead sun between the sunset of one day and the sunrise of
the following day. The ideas about this region, which we find
reproduced in papyri of the New Empire, belong to different
periods, and we can see that the Theban wi'iters who described it
and drew pictures of the beings which lived in it, collected a mass
of legends and myths from every great religious centre of Egypt,
wishing to make them all form part of their doctrine concerning
the great god of Thebes, Amen-Rri. As the j)riests of Heliopolis
succeeded in promulgating their theological system throughout the
length and breadth of Egypt by identifying the older gods with
their gods, and by proving that their views included those of all
the priesthoods of the great cities of Egypt, so the priests of
Thebes endeavoured to convince the priests of other great cities
of the superiority and greatness of their God Amen-Ra, and
probably succeeded in so doing. The Theban writers and scribes
knew perfectly well that originally every nome or great city
possessed its OAvn underworld just as it possessed its own company
of gods, and that each underworld was designated by a special
name ; they, therefore, made the Tuat to include all these under-
worlds and all the various gods Avith whom they Avere peopled,
and they gave it the most important of the names of the local
underworlds. The best knoAvn of these Avas Amentet, ft'^ "^^ i-e.,
the " hidden place," Avhich appears to have been originally the
place where An-her, the local god of Abydos, ruled as god of the
dead, under the title of " Khenti Amentet," that is to say, " he
Avho is the chief of the unseen land." When the importance of
An-her Avas eclipsed by the neAv-comer Osiris, the title of the former
THE TUAT AND ITS INHAIUTANTS 173
was assigned to Osiris, who, henceforth, was always called " Khenti
Amentet." But this usurpation of An-her's title as god of the
dead by Osiris must have taken place in very early times, for
Amentet was a common name for the underworld throughout
Egypt, and is found in texts of all periods, even in those of the
Vth and Vlth Dynasties.
Yet long before even this remote period the priesthoods of
certain nomes or cities must have developed the idea that the life
of a man resembled the course of the sun during the day, and that
setting was to the sun Avhat death was to a man ; the sun, how-
ever, reappeared each morning in apparently a neAV body, and as
man wished to live again in a renewed, or new, body, the Egyptian
theologians set to work to form a system of theology in which the
souls of the blessed dead, i.e., those who had been buried with all
the ceremonies prescribed by the religion of the period, were made
to accompany the sun in his boat as he passed through the portion
of the Tuat which had been assigned to them. As the sun passed
through the Tuat large numbers of souls made their way into his
boat, and although it was only the dead sun that was their guide
and protector, and his passage was through the realms of the dead
which were under the sovereignty of Osiris, the god of the dead,
they were brought forth at length to renewed life and light as
soon as the boat passed out from the eastern end of the Tuat into
the day. This view was a very popular and widespread one,
especially as it made Ra and Osiris work together, each after his
own method, to secure eternal life and happiness for the souls of
the dead. As soon as the priests had made up their minds that
the Tuat existed, they began to people it with imaginary beings
which were supposed to be hostile to the souls of the dead, and to
invent descriptions of the various regions into which they declared
it was divided ; such descriptions were at length committed to
writing, at first in a very simple form, and after the manner of
every group of texts Avhich were composed for the benefit of the
dead, but finally they became more elaborate, and attempts Avere
made to represent pictorially the creatures which were found in
the Tuat. In fact, it was intended to compile a book which should
contain such accurate descriptions of the Tuat, and such true
174 THE SHAT AM TUAT
pictures of the foes which the dead soul would have to meet there,
together with lists of their names, that when a soul was once
provided with a copy of it he would find it impossible to lose his
way, or to be overcome by any monster which attempted to bar
his way or to prevent his access to the boat of Ra.
The great work which the Egyptians called " Coming Fortli
ra Ik o
by Day," <=:> ^^^^ v\ , supplied the soul with a great many
words of power, and prayers, and incantations, as well as hymns,
but even in the Early Empire, about B.C. 3500, many of its
doctrines were antiquated, and the priests found it necessary to
add new chapters and to modify old ones in order to make it a
funeral work suitable for the requirements of newer generations of
men. Owing to the extreme antiquity of the " Book of Coming
Forth by Day," the views expressed in many of its chapters were
contrary to those held by Theban priests of the New Empire, about
B.C. 1050, and as a result, whilst preserving, and holding in great
reverence this work which they had borrowed from the ancient
priesthood of Heliopolis, they compiled two works, which may be
called "The Book of that which is in the Tuat," and the
" Book of the Pylons." In the first of these, the Shat am Tuat,"
*^^^ ] _ _ 1\ u^ '^ ^ were o:athered too:ether all the views held
by the Heliopolitan priesthood on the life of man's soul after death,
and though it contained all the doctrines as to the supremacy of
Ra, their great Sun-god, these were so skilfully manipulated by
the Theban priests, that the compilation actually became a work
which magnified the grade and influence of Amen-Ra, the great
god of Thebes, and raised him to the position which the Thebans
claimed for him, namely, "king of the gods, and lord of the
thrones of the two lands." The thrones here referred to are not
those of kings, but the shrines of all the gods on all the land on
each side of the river Nile. In the Heliopolitan system of theology
the god Osiris held a comparatively subordinate position in the
"pauti or company of the gods, and was in fact only the greatest of
the gods of the dead who were worshipped in the Delta ; in the
" Book of that which is in the Underworld " he also holds a position
subordinate to Ra, and his underworld is made to be a portion of
THE BOOK OF THE PYLONS 175
the Tuat through which the dead sun passed nightly. In the Shat
EN Sbau, ^^^^ "^"^^ -^^wv. n ^ 1) '^ % "^^ '--', or " Book of the
Pylons," the greatest god of all is the god Osiris, and the whole
work is devoted to a description of the various sections of the
region over which he presides, and is intended to form a guide to
it whereby the souls of the dead may be enabled to make their
way through it successfully and in comfort. The Shat am Tuat
and the Shat en sbau were, in fact, the outcome of two distinct
schools of theology ; the latter, in its most primitive form, was the
older of the two, and described the life of man after death more
as a continuation of his existence on this earth than as an entirely
new life, while the former made the future life to be passed entirely
with the Sun-god. The latter maintained the views about the
Elysian Fields and their material delights, which found utterance
in the " Book of Coming Forth by Day," and was to all intents
and purposes an amplification of, and a companion volume to it, but
it also contained doctrines which were inserted in it with the view
of making it harmonize with the theories in the former which
related to the absolute supremacy of Ra. The Theban priests had
no wish, when once they had established the mastery of Amen-Ra,
but to bring all the doctrines of the various schools of religious
thought into harmony with their own, for such a course could do
nothing but contribute to the material prosperity of the great
brotherhood of Amen-Ra. They were tolerably sure of the
offerings of the faithful of Thebes, but they were anxious to
obtain a share of those of the devotees of Osiris who flocked to
Abydos, which was, rightly or wrongly, celebrated as the burial-
place of the god. The history of Egypt shows that the fight
between the kings of the South and the kings of the North for the
supremacy of the whole country was always going on, but as the
fortunes of war had given victory to the kings of the South, who
were the lords of all Egypt under the New Empire, the priests of
the god of these kings determined that Amen-Ra should be the
king of the gods. Religious ambition was helped by the success
of the great warrior kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and thus
Amen-Ra became the overlord of Osiris.
176
DIVISIONS OF THE UNDERWORLD
Both the " Book of that which is in the Underworld " and the
" Book of the Pylons " divide the Tuat into twelve parts, each of
which corresponds to one of the hours of the night, and the
divisions are called ^' Field," LjJjQ "^ , selcliet, or " City," , nut, or
" Hall," ^^ ^_^ arret, or " Circle," ^^ ^^ qerert. In Chapter
cxliv. of the Book of the Dead, according to the Papyrus of Nu
(Brit. Mus.,No. 10,477), the Arrets are seven in number, and each
is guarded by a doorkeeper, a watcher, and a herald with the
following names : —
Arret I. 1. Sekhet-hra-ilsht-aru,
2. Semetu, P '^ ^ ^ ^ J • 3. Hu-kheru, rn
Areet II. 1. Tun.pehti,^ ^ ^ |. 2. Seqet-hm.p ^ ^ f .
3. Sabes,
JP-
Arret III. 1. Am-huat-ent-peh-fi
2. Res-hra, <=
A
J ^ # J . 3. Uaau, ^
I AA/WV\ ^
:^ W
Arret IV. 1. Khesef-hra-ash-kheru, ^ U=/l ^ ^^ j %^ ^A .
2. Ptes - ab, <:=^ P J "^ • ^- ^eteqa - hra - khesef - atu,
^ A
Arret V. 1. Ankh - em - fentu.
f
/www v\ OOL . 2.
I I I
Ashebii,
ra
rm
O
J ^ . 3. Teb - her - kehaat, -=^ J f
Arret VI. 1. Aken-tau-k-ha-kheru,
2. An-her,
I
D
^
1 ra
3. Metes-lira-ari-she,
w
s
"'^^
DIVISIONS OF THE UNDERWORLD
177
Arret VII. 1. Metes-sen,
'^^
1 1 1
3. Khesef-hra-khemiu
2. Aa-kheru,
In Chapter cxlv. of the Book of the Dead according to the
Theban and Saite Recensions the domain of Osiris, i.e., Sekhet-
Aarrn,
V
I I I
or Sekhet-Aanre,
.V
I'M oUt ^U, contains Twenty-one pylons, each of which
has a name, generally a very long one, and each of which is
guarded by a god. The names of the gods who guard the first ten
of these pylons are: — 1. Neri, ^^ (|fl '^ ^=^ J- 2. Mes-Peh,
n|_^J|. 3. Ertat-Sebanqa, ^
4. Nekau, TV ^ v^^wl- ^- Henti-requ,
6. Semamti, [1^'^^^J^. 7. Akenti,
^
l^i-
AAA/V\A
^ w
TCHET-F
9. TCHESEF,
. 8. Khu-
Sekhen-ur,
These names are taken from the Papyrus of
Nu already quoted (sheet 25), but the following come from
the Turin Papyrus, which was edited by Lepsius so far back as
1842, and they illustrate the changes which have taken place in
the names. 1. Nerau, ""^[l^^N J. 2. Mes-Ptah,
3. Beq, J ^ II . 4. Hu-tepa, f ^ ^^
1 . 5. Erta-
HEN-ER-REQAr,
7. Am-Nit,
A
e
6. Samti,
w
TCHET-F,
h^
(9
=. ^ I
8. Netchses, '^ ^^
^'^^ . 10. Sekhen-ur,
9. Khau-
The names of all the pylons are given in both the Theban and
Sa'ite Recensions,^ but the names of the gods who guard pylons
XL — XXI. are given in neither. The domain of Osiris, or Sekhet-
Aarru, was, according to Chapters cxlix. and cl., divided into fifteen
Aats, which are thus enumerated : — Aat ( ) I. Sekhet Aarru ;
^ See my Chapters of Coming Forth by Day (Text), p. 334 S.
178 DIVISIONS OF SEKHET-AARRU
its ffod was Ra-Heru-khuti. Aat II. Apt-ent-khet, %J
its god was Fa-akli, k^^ V^ ^ ~^ "^ i . Aat III. Tu-qa-aat,
^ ^ I "^ '^ " • ^^'^ ^^' " ^^^ ^^^ ^^ *^^^ spirits,"
"^ ^ I . Aat V. Ammehet, n t — ^^^ | ^ ; the god in it
is called Sekher-remu, P^^^^^-^^IY^,^- -^^t VI.
Asset, ()PP@- -^^t VII. Ha-sert, [TI^-AP^^©; the
. A
god in it is Fa-jDet, ^/ • Aat VIII. Apt-ent-qahu, ^_
^ ^ i ^ ^ • ^^^ ^^' ^'^^' 1 "^^ ^ ® ' *^^® Sot^ in it is Sept,
A^P^. Aat X. Unt, ■^^^; the god in it is Hetemet-baiu,
Q n -^^ :: A <*^ I . Aat XI. Apt-net, V* 'wvw. ; the god in
it is Aa-sekhemu, ^^IP^^^©,"^, ^- ^^t XII.
Kher-aha, J^ Q^ "^ ^ ; the god in it is Hap, \ ~^ ^ J
i.e., the Nile. Aat XIII. Atru-she- en-nesert-f-em-shet,
I'^^^P^' *^® ^^^ ^^ '^* ^^ Maa-thet-f, ^ '^ ^^ ^ ^ •
Aat XV. Amentet-nefert, " Beautiful Amentet, \ ^^^^ T <c==> ,"
wherein the gods live upon cakes and ale.
In connexion with these various divisions of the realm of
Osiris here will follow naturally a brief description of the Book
OF Pylons. An excellent copy of its text, with illustrations, is to
be found on the famous alabaster sarcophagus ^ of Seti I., now
preserved in Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields,
and variants of several of the passages are given on the walls of
the tombs of several kings of the XXth Dynasty, Avho were buried
in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes. Curiously
enough, the work, as M. Jequier has remarked,^ seems never to
have become popular, and copies of it are only found in royal
tombs ; it is generally admitted that it represents an attempt on
1 See Bonomi and Shai'pe, The alabaster Sarcopliagus of Oimenepldah I., King
of Egypt, London, 1864.
3 Le Livre de ce qu'il y a dans VHades, Paris, 1894, p. 13.
DIVISIONS OF THE TUAT
179
the part of the Theban priests to adjust the cult of Ra to that of
Osiris, and if this be so there is little to wonder at if it failed.
According to the Book of Pylons the Tuat is a long, narrow
valley, with sandy slopes, and is divided into two equal strips by
the river on which the boat of the sun sails ; it is made to contain
1^1-^
M^^MU^Uli
The First Hour of the Night.
twelve nomes or divisions, which correspond to the twelve hours
of the night.
In the First Division, i.e., the First Hour, we have the
Mountain of the West, i^^, divided into two portions, and along
its lowest part is a path which forms the entrance from this world
to the Tuat. On the right-hand side is a jackal-headed standard,
180 FIRST DIVISION OF THE THAT
"^ , and on the left a ram-headed standard, V f ^ach of these is
adored by the god of the mountain, Set, '=^ , and the god of the
Tuat, c=^i: '^g\ '=^ . On the right are the twelve gods of the
mountain, and on the left the twelve gods of Set-Amentet,
j I I J| I ^ (1 ^/w^A^. In the centre is the boat of the sun, and we
see in it a disk containing a beetle ; the disk is encircled by a
huge serpent in folds, which holds its tail in its mouth. In the
bows of the boat stands the god Sa, ^mi, and in the stern, Heka,
m, the god of magical words. The boat, having moved on,
approaches a pylon Avith closed doors, guarded by a huge serpent
which stands on his tail and bears the name Saa-Set, ^^ \\
This pylon forms the entrance to the Second Division, or Second
Hour, and when the god has passed through it " those who dwell in
"their Set, ^ i , cry out."^ On the right are twenty-four human
— • - "Tk n — ** —
forms, which represent those who praised Ra upon earth, i<: ^^ ) "'■''^^
O ^ "^"^ g^jjj ^i;^Q directed their words of power ao;ainst the arch-
fiend Apep, '^"^ ^iM^. In the centre is the boat of the sun, in
which the god stands in a shrine ; he is ram-headed, and holds in
his hand a sceptre. The shrine is protected by the serpent
Mehen, °^ , and a serpent stands upright on its tail before him ;
the boat is being towed along by four beings of the Tuat,
>ic VN cr^] J| I , and is met by the seven gods called Nepmeli, □ ,
Nenha, ^, Ba (?), Horus, Ua-ab, ^^O, Khnemu, and Setchet,
n ^^ I , and by six gods of the aqet, £ ^ , and a god with a
iStafF. On the left hand of the divine boat ai'e : — (1) The god Tem,
leaning on a staff, /^, (2) four dead men lying on their backs,
and twenty men standing with their arms tied together behind
their backs. These last are, according to M. Lefebure's rendering^
of the text, " the criminals in Ra's great hall (the world), those
" who have insulted Ra on the earth, those who have cursed that
1 Bonomi and Sliarpe, op. cit., pU. 5 and 4.
2 See Becords of the Past, vol. x., p. 85 ff.
182 THIRD DIVISION OF THE TUAT
" whicli is in the Egg, those who have frustrated justice, those who
"have uttered blasphemies against Khuti." The pylon which the
god now approaches is quite different from the first, but it
resembles all the others which have to be passed through. The
opening is protected like a fortress by some advanced work, and
through the wall is an entrance to a corridor which runs between
two walls crowned with a series of spear heads. This corridor
bends at right angles, and in each angle is a uraeus, from the
mouth of which drop balls of fire that fill the whole length of it ;
at each end of the corridor is a god in the form of a mummy, one
is called Am-aua-qah-f, &i V^ ' ^ § I ^^-=-, and the other,
Sekhabsenfunen, ^ J ^ ™ ^ ZI- The pylon itself is called
Septet-uauau, I ^-^-^(11, and the name of the snake
which guards it and stands upon its tail is Aqebi, 'k\ ^ J flfl ^m '
The entrance to the pylon is also protected by nine gods, in
mummied form, who represent the " Second Company " of the
ffods, ^ 1 1 1 y
» ' ^ III ^ ^
The door of the pylon is opened towards the Third Division
OF THE TuAT, or the Third Hour. The gate is called Septet
UAUAu setet-sen-Ra, n ° ^ X^jQ n I n^ |1 ^wCvAA %^ Qji the
right hand of the boat of the god are twelve holy gods of the Tuat,
each in his shrine, with the doors open, and twelve gods of the
lakes of fire ; a huge snake lies along the tops of all the shrines,
and before each god of the basins of fire is an ear of corn. On the
left hand are: — 1. The god Tem ; 2. the serpent xipep ; o. the
nine gods who are called the " chiefs who drive back Apepi,"
things, ^37 v\ I ^ "^ c^ ' • The boat of the sun is towed
through this division by eight gods of the Tuat, and the middle of
the rope is fastened to a long pole or beam, each end of which
terminates in the head of a bull. This pole is supported by eight
gods in mummied form, and upon it are seated seven gods ; in
front and behind these stands a bull, and at the end of the
division stand four shrouded mummy forms. The gods who are
184 FOURTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
on the left hand of the boat of the sun, and are under the direction
of Tern, form two companies, whose special duty it was to carry-
out the commands of this god in respect of the slaughter of the
arch-fiend Apepi. This monster was first of all to be enchanted
by the incantations which were recited over him, and then his
head was to be cut off, and his body to be hacked in pieces at the
joints. As the god passes out of the Third Division and the door
closes, all the beings who are fated to remain in it lift up their
voices and weep.
The pylon of the Foukth Division or Fouhth Hour is called
Nebt-s-tchefau, ^ "i^ i , and the name of the serpent which
' — H— c=3 I r ^
guards it and stands upon its tail is Tchetbi, ^^ J Nv ^^^ S^^^
in mummied forms who stand one at the beginning and one at the
end of the corridor are called ISFenuerbesta, , and
Seta-ta, ^. ^^ , respectively. The nine gods Avho guard
the wall are the " the third company of the great god," ^ in i
I 3 nK^ • . On the right side of the boat of the god are
twelve gods, who are described as the "bringers of their doubles,"
^ V AA.WW Lj 1 A^A^AA ^ and twelve jackal-headed figures, who are
walking on the Lake of Life,^ and ten uraei, who rise out of the
Lake of uraei ; ^ to all these the Sun-god addresses words of
comfort, and they respond suitably. The uraei, Avho are called
" those Avho live," i\ V ^ (/A i T ® in' ^^^^ oi'clered to preserve
their flames and fire for use against the enemies of Ra, and they
answer the god, saying, " Come to us, unite thyself to Tanen,"
__a ^_^ ^^ ^ J\ <=^ 4- T ^ ' ^^ ^^^® ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ *^® ^*^^* ^^
the god is Horus the Aged, who follows eleven human forms as
A/W\AA
they march behind the uraeus called Flame, ^^ ^, to a shrine in
which the god Osiris, wearing the crown of the South, stands upon
a serpent. Behind Osiris are the twelve gods, ''who are behind
the shrine," and four gods, who preside over pits in the earth,
and the "prince of destruction," who holds a sceptre in his left
^^^mmmmmmmmmmm
186 FIFTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
hand and ■¥■ in his right. In the middle is the boat of the sun
being towed along the river of the Tuat by four gods as usual, and
it is made to approach a long low sepulchral building in which are
nine chapels, each containing a mummied god lying flat on his
back ; these are called " the gods who are in the train of Osiris in
their caves," 111 s..^ "^ I i -||- % ' "^ \, ^ '^^, At the
end of this building are two groups, each containing six women,
who are the personifications of the twelve hours in the Tuat ;
between them is the serpent Herert, | <=>, with multitudinous
coils and windings, and he is said to give birth to twelve young
ones to devour the hours. In this division, as in the others, Ra
addresses the beings who are in it, and makes arrangements for
their supply of food, and reminds them of their duties to him their
creator.
The pylon of the Fifth Division or Fifth Hour is called
Arit, (1 •<2>- (1(1 ^ • , and the serpent who guards it bears the name
of Teka-hra, i^a "^ ; the jackal-headed mummy at one end of the
corridor is Aau, □ '^i^ V:^ , and he at the other is Tekemi,
j\ . Along the front of the wall are nine gods in mummied
forms who represent the fourth company of the gods. On the
right hand of the boat of the god are : — 1. The twelve worshippers
in the Tuat ; 2. Twelve bearers of cord, ^ %^ i O % § ^ ;
and 3. Four gods Avith sceptres. These beings are said to be
those who knew Ra upon earth, and who made offerings to him,
and in return for this Ra awarded them meat and drink in the
most holy place in Amentet, and said to them, "I am satisfied
" with what you did for me, whether I was shining in the Eastern
" heaven, or whether I was in the temple, M "^ , of my eye."
Therefore they feed upon the food which Ra eats, and offerings are
made to them upon earth on account of the praise which they
ascribe to Ra in Amenti. The beings who carry the cords are
supposed to measure the " fields of the spirits," "^^ | "^ i 'wwva "^j,
and their cords are supposed to represent the cord of law, i.e.,
■iM-^i^^S^ite^Ui^
»i»ia»eta»g»-MM
i^
^
•e=:
liil
S2
<^
•^=:!
iin>c
iin>o
anx)
in>o
188 FIFTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
the measuring cord by which law and justice are represented,
and " Ra says to them, Their law is the cord in Amentet,"
u AAA/w. AAAAA^ '^^-wv O ^^ " g (s / M ^ . Qu thc Icft side
^ i I I I - a ^'^^^ O A ^ 1 r^y^]
of the boat of the sun are: — 1. Horus the Elder leaning upon a
stick; 2. Sixteen men, four of whom are ^^ ^ Jj ', i.e., Egyp-
tians, four are Aamu, | ^\ "v^ i , four are Negroes, '/\ § ' _v ' ^
and four are Libyans, | V '' ^- Twelve men, called "those
A7ho bear ladders (?) in Ament, ^ "V ^ ' f ° ^ ° ^
[1 , and who are holding a long serpent ; and 4. Eight
divine sovereign chiefs in Ament. To these four classes of men,
whom Horus describes as being in the Tuat of Egypt and the Red
Land, ^ ^ — i ^ r^^v~i ^, it is said by the o'od, "Ye are the
" tears from my Eye,"
^111
I
" in your name of ' men,' " _ ^ m ' • ^^ fhen tells the Aamu,
k(c) ^ — VQi I , and the Negroes and the Libyans that he has
created them, and that it is the goddess Sekhet, Y ^ Jl' ^^^^
redeems * their souls, c^ 'j' ^ A <^^: i '"'■'"^ . Finally, the srod
addresses those who hold the ladder (?), and bids them take
measurements of the souls that are appointed for destruction,
and destroy the souls that have to be destroyed ; in the hands
of these beings was the power of determining the length of the
period which had to be passed by souls in Amentet, and it is
undoubtedly passages like these which have given rise to the idea
that the Egyptians believed in purgatory. In the centre of this
Division the boat of the sun is being drawn along by four gods
belonging to it as before. Before these are nine gods with pro-
jecting elbows and covered shoulders called " holders of Ennutchi,"
<^ ^^1 ^lo^'^ljjj i>_; they are joined together by a
rope ; these gods follow tAvelve men who are described as the
"souls of the men who are in the Tuat," and both groups of
beings proceed towards a god who holds a sceptre, and is called
Her-qenbet-f, f=^ '^ 11 "^ '^-=— • The duty of this god was to
/www <iU l_ I
SIXTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
189
call the souls of the i4ghteous and put them in their dwellings,
by the corner of those who lived near him. Ra, addresses the
gods who tow his boat along, and bids them to pull with vigour,
and to be strong of arm and firm of limb, and swift of foot, and
bold of soul to make a prosperous way for him to the hidden
circles, ^ i |~^^ • i . ISText he addresses the figures with draped
shoulders who bear the serpent Ennutchi, ^
and bids them to draw him along ; and
then praises those who have spoken truth,
c^>( I I I
magnified
the forms of God,
I I I
(S
upon earth, and have
^\\
1 I I, and decrees for
them cakes for their souls, wind for their
uostrils, green herbs from Sekhet-Aaru,
and a place among the gods of right and
truth, S^ "^ Jj , in the corner of the abode
of Ra where the companions of the god
pass sentences of doom. The doctrine here
preached is essentially that of Osiris, and
there is no wonder that the Book of Pylons
was not popular with the priests of Amen.
The name of the pylon of the Sixth
Division ^ or the Sixth Hour is Nebt-aha,
? ^ , the guardian at the entrance to
the corridor is Maa-ab,
"Right of
heart," and he who is at the end is Sheta-ab,
" Secret Heart."
guarded
The wall is
by twelve gods in mummied
forms, who are called " the gods and
" goddesses who are in this Pylon," | | |
©
Behind the wall is a chamber, the wall of which
has upon it a row of spear heads, and inside we see the god Osiris
^ The scene of the Sixth Division is so mutilated on the sarcophagus of Seti I.
that it is not reproduced here.
190 SIXTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
seated upon the top of a flight of nine steps, on each of which
stands a god ; thus the whole company of the gods of Osiris are
here represented. Osiris wears a double crown, Vi , and holds in
his hands the sceptre, j, and the emblem of "life." Before him
stands a mummied figure who forms the pillar of a pair of scales,
and who may be regarded as the personification of the Great
Balance with which we are familiar in the Judgment Scene as
depicted in papyri. In the pan of the scales is the bird of evil, ^^ .
Near the scales is a boat in which are an ape and a pig ; the ape
is urging the pig along with a stick. In the upper part of the
scene are the heads of four oryxes and a figure of the god Anubis.
The difficult texts which accompany this scene tell us that the
" enemies of Osiris are beneath his feet, the gods and the spirits
" are before him ; he is the foe of the damned, he repulses the
" enemies, and he destroys them, and eftects their slaughter.
" The bearer of the hatchet, and the supporter of the scales
" protect him who is in Amenti, who resteth in the Tuat, and who
" passeth through darkness and shadow. Above is Joy, and below
" are Right and Truth ( J . The god resteth and giveth forth
"the light of Maat which he hath made." The ape in the boat is
said to hand over the pig to punishment " when the god riseth,"
and Anubis says, " 0 ye who bring words true or false to me
" [remember] that it is Thoth who weigheth them." Concerning
Osiris we read, " When the weighing of words taketh place he
" smiteth evil ; he hath a right heart, and he holdeth the words in
" the Scales in the holy place wherein the trial of the secret things
" of the secrets of the spirits taketh place. It is the god who riseth
" who hath made all the beings who are in the Tuat." The text
which relates to the four inverted heads of oryxes is not clear in
its meaning, but it says that their dwelling-place is the Amehet,
a district in the Elysian Fields, and that they hide or protect
the spirits. We must note in passing the position of the Sixth
Division of the Tuat. Assuming that the Tuat was regarded as
a nearly circular valley which curved round from the West, where
the sun set, to the North, and curved round from the North to the
East, where the sun rose, it follows if all the twelve divisions of
SEVENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT 191
the Tuat be equal in length, that the Sixth Division Avould be very-
near the most northerly part of the Tuat. And this is exactly
where it was intended to be, for the most northerly part of the
Tuat would include the greater pai't of the Delta, where the
principal shrines of Osiris, i.e., Mendes and Busiris, were situated,
and it was ouly right to make the position of the kingdom of
Osiris on earth to correspond with that of his domain in the Tuat.
Unlike the other divisions of the Tuat, the Sixth Division contains
no representation of the god Ra, and the texts belonging to it do
not even mention his name ; the Book of Pylons made Osiris
absolutely supreme in his own dominions, and the exclusion of Ril,
or Amen-Ra, from them was clearly the cause which made the
work unpopular with all the worshippers of the great god of
Thebes. The position of Osiris on the top of a flight of steps
explains the allusions to the "god who is on his staircase" in
the Book of the Dead, and it proves that it is this god
who is represented on the wooden plaque of Semti,^ and before
whom the king is dancing. The Sun-god Ra, having arrived
at the north of the Tuat, must now make his way towards the
East.
The serpent who guards the pylon of the Seventh Division
or the Seventh Hour ^ is called Akhan-maati, ^-=. , and the
guardian at the end of the corridor is called Shepi, |-, (1(1 "^^ ;
but the mutilated state of the scene renders it impossible to give
the name of the pylon or of the guardian of the entrance to the
corridor. On the right side of the boat of the god are a number
of beings bearing a rope, which is usually made to resemble a
serpent, and on the left side are : — 1 . A god bending over a staff ;
■ 111 mil t rt I _ 1
his name is Men-sheta, • , " Stablisher of what is secret."
2. A number of mummied forms extended on couches, who are
described as the " mighty spirits." These beings are commanded
by Ra to uncover themselves and to drive away darkness. In the
centre is the boat of the Sun-god being towed along, presumably
^ See British Museum, No. 32,650.
^ The scene of the Seventh Division is so mutilated on the sarcophagus of
Seti I. that it is not reproduced here.
192 EIGHTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
by four gods of the Tuat as before. Marching in front of those
Avho tow the boat are twelve gods with sceptres, and four
mummied forms who cry out to the inhabitants of this Division
of the Tuat to praise Ra, for he will weigh words and will destroy
their enemy.
The pylon of the Eighth Division or the Eighth Hour is
called Bekhkhi, j J (1 (1 1 1 cnn , and the name of the snake-god,
its guardian, is Set- bra, ^ llTUHtJ *^^ guardian of the
"^5 and the guardian
at its end is Hept-ta, | ^ '^i^ . The wall is protected by nine
2:ods in mummied forms, ^ 1 1 1 c^ . On the riorht side of the boat of
the god are : — 1. Twelve beings in human form, who are described
as the " sovereign chiefs who give bread, Maat, and green herbs to
" the souls of Ta-neserser," h A a — d \j i ^^^'^^ -Oi ^^— ^ ^ "^
-^ I , ■ AAAAAA H /^
^""^^ "b '^^^ ' ^ — —*— \\. 2. Nine souls, in the form of
bearded human-headed hawks, with their hands raised in adora-
tion ; these are the " souls of Ta-neserser," which are fed with
bread and green herbs by the command of the god Ra. On the
left hand side of the boat of Ra are : — 1. Horus leaning on a staff.
2. Twelve men, who represent the enemies of Osiris that have
been burnt in the fire, with their arms tied together behind their
backs, each group of four in a different way. Opposite the first
of these is a huge serpent called Kheti, ^® |1 , which belches forth
a stream of fire into his face ; on the back of the serpent stand
seven gods. The twelve beings are those on whom punishment
has been inflicted by Horus at the command of Ra, who has
decreed the death both of their bodies and of their souls because
of what they did against Osiris, whose mysteries they despised,
and whose image they tore from the sanctuary. The serpent
Kheti, which is commanded by Horus to consume the foes of his
father Osiris, is adjured to burn up both the souls and the bodies
of these wicked ones. In the centre of this division are: — 1. The
boat of the sun being towed by four gods as before. 2. "The
dweller in Nu" leaning on a staff. 3. A rectangular lake in which
194 NINTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
are sixteen men, four of whom bathe, ["Q r-. QQ V '' ^°^^' float,
() D (](j ^ 1 , four swim, f^ J ()(] ^ | , and four dive, ^ "^ ^.T".-
The gods who tow the boat say, " Let there be praise to the soul of
" Ra in heaven, and adoration to his body upon earth ; for heaven
" is made new by his soul, and earth is made new by his body.
" Hail ! We open for thee heaven, we make straight for thee the
" ways of Akert. Rest thyself, 0 Ra, upon thy hidden things ;
" the hidden ones are adored in thy forms." He who dwelleth in
Nu also addresses those who are in the lake.
The pylon of the Ninth Division or Ninth Hour, is called
Aat-shefsheft, o ■ ''^-=— ; the serpent which guards it is
Ab-ta, X ^^^^ ; and the guardians of the corridor are Anhefta,
[1 AAAAAA 0 , and Ermen-ta, " . The wall is guarded by
nine o-ods in mummied forms, ^ in ^ . On the right hand side of
the boat of the Sun-god are : — 1. Four gods of the South, | ' i y?
each wearing the white crown, and grasping a rope which is also
held by a man who is called " the master of the front," v=
between the man and these four gods is a pillar surmounted by a
bearded head, with a white cro^\^l on it, which is being raised by
means of the rope. 2. A hawk-headed sphinx with the white
crown on his head, and a bearded head, with a white crown on it,
resting on his hind quarters. Standing on his back is a human
figure which is surmounted by the heads of Horus and Set.
3. Four gods of the North, | i ^\_^ each wearing the red crown,
and grasping a rope which is also held by a man who is called "the
master of the back," f=^ ..^ ; between the man and these four gods
is a pillar, surmounted by a bearded head with a red crown on it,
which is being raised by means of the rope. 4. A personage called
Apu, ^g^^ J holding the serpent Shemti, ciszi ^^^, which has four
heads at each end of his body. 5. A personage holding the serpent
Bath, J \\ s=r=> , with a head at each end of his body ; on his back
stands a serpent which is called Tepi, ^ flfl ? and which is provided
rr--'^
^<
^^^
^mmmmuimmmmu
mmmmmmam
be
196 TENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
at each end of his body with four human heads, breasts, and arms,
and four pairs of human legs. 6. Two men holding a rope (?).
On the left hand of the boat of the god are : — Sixteen human
forms Avhich represent the (a) souls of Amentet, (h) the followers of
Thoth, (c) the followers of Horus, (d) the followers of Osiris ; the
first four have the heads of men, the second four the heads of
ibises, the third four the heads of hawks, and the fourth four the
heads of rams. These sixteen beings draw a rope to which is
attached a double serpent with four heads, two at each end of
his body, and one pair of legs at each end which support the
larger serpent. The serpent is called Khepri, ^ UO? ^^d on one
of his folds is perched the hawk Heru-tuati, 2^ ^ At the
other end of the rope are eight human forms called Akhmiu,
h ^ ^k. ^Q ^ ^ ^ v^ • ^^^ ^^^^ centre of this Division the boat of
the god is being towed along as before. Before him march : —
1. Six human forms, four apes, and four women, each holding a
rope (?) ; and 2. Three men holding a ro^DC which is thrown over
the head and held in the hands by a prostrate man Avho has the
ears of an ass, and who is called Aai, (j "^ M , i.e., " Ass." Each
man holds a pike which he is about to drive into the prostrate
body. In front of the man are : — 1. The serpent Apep, and 2. The
crocodile, with a tail which terminates in a serpent's head, called
Shesshes, r-vri fl r^\-i 1 . The beings here described are those who
work magic for Ra on the arch-fiend Apep, and they bid him come
to the place of slaughter that he may be slain ; they say, " the
" slaughterino- places are against thee, and the Aai gods are
"agai„stthee,"^^^^f,;,^|[l^U.q^(l_yj^.
The three beings with pikes drive their weapons into Apep, and
destroy utterly the serpent Sesi, || U (1 Hm^ ; and they keep fast
hold of the rope of Ai, "^ ^1^1 9^' ^"^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ *^^^* serpent rise
up towards the boat of the god.
The pylon of the Tentpi Division or the Tenth Hour is called
Tcheserit, \=^ (1(1 ^ ; the serpent-god who guards it is Sethu,
^ v\ mn^ ; and the guardians of the corridor are Nemi, (
•^
t^^
^— i
<»nutwt»ww>|mtiimmi j <^=;i
tt»tuiitutu>iut»mumnu>m
TiiinnRyimr
.?»--
•I ^
198 TENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
and Kefi, ^~^ l\ [I . The wall is guarded by sixteen uraei. On the
right hand of the boat of the god are: — 1. Four beings, each
holding a knife and a rope (?). 2. Four beings, similarly armed,
but each having four serpents' heads ; these are called Antiu,
H ^ ' ^^^ Hentiu, | /wSa (111 ^ , respectively. 3. The
serpent Apep, "whose voice goeth round about in the Tuat,"
— »-
held by a chain which is grasped by four beings, Stefiu, «=^
and twelve gods, and a mighty hand called the "hidden body,"
[1 : il. On the chain, near Apep's head, is stretched out
the scorpion-goddess Serqet. Behind the hand, and growing out
of the chain are : — {a) Seb, "^^ J , who grasps a small chain to
which is attached the serpent Uamemti, X] / 1 1- (b) Mest,
^p, Hapi, ^ flu , Tuamutef, ^ ^^, and Qebhsennuf, jv 111 '^'^•
At the end stands Khenti-Amenti, or Osiris. The beings on this
side of the Tuat are engaged in destroying Apep and the foes of
the sun-god so that they may not attack the boat of the sun when
it comes to a narrow passage. On the left hand side of the boat
of Ra are: — 1. The twelve Akhmu-seku gods, fl ^ ^^ % ^
I ^~^, holding paddles. 2. Twelve women, who represent the
' ^ '" , _ n a 1
hours. 3. Four gods with sceptres. Bant, J 'wwv, i ^ Seshsha,
fi 1"^^ (1 , Ka-Ament, LJ If , and Renen-sebu, /wwvv : ^ . 4. A
monkey on a standard, ^-^{t, with a star over his head, described as
the "god of Rethenu" (Syria), | ^ . 5. An eye
(utchat) on a standard, ^^. 6. A god with a sceptre. Along
the middle of this division the boat of the o-od is towed as usual
ft'
by four gods. Before it are: — 1. The star god Unti, ^^
AA^/WN
2. Four deities, Sekhet, Abesh, ^ — a J cisz], Serq, , and
Horus. 3. Three star gods, who tow a small boat in which are
the " face of the disk," y {\ ^^ , and a uraeus. 4. A winged
uraeus called Semi, ^"s^^iOO, standing upon its tail. 5. A god
called Besi, J I [In, pouring flame upon a standard surmounted
1
i
^
^
)^
P^
^
S
■■■■■■■«■■■■■■
i^sc
•^^i
.^:ii
,^fc^';:
^tui»imi»uummm»ut:
Ni^
-•^c at
200 ELEVENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
by the head of a horned animal. 6. A serpent caled Ankhi,
^ l\l\, with a bearded god in mummied form growing out from
each side of its body. 7. Four women, with hands raised in
adoration, who are called "the adorers," [^:£i (1 (1 c=S=, . 8. The
double god Horus-Set, with two heads and two pairs of arms and
hands on one body, standing upon a platform which rests on two
bows ; from each end of the platform spring three uraei. All
these beings are supposed to be employed in helping Ra to con-
tinue his course through the Tenth Division, and to make his way
to the region of the sunrise ; it is evident that most of them are
personifications of the stars which herald the approach of the
da^yn.
The pylon of the Eleventh Division or the Eleventh Hour
is called Shetat-besu, ^ ^ J 1 _^ i , and the serpent which
guards it is called xVm-net-f, ij -^ ^ (^ "^-^^ UHt ; the guardians
of the corridor are Metes, ^^^ , and Shetau, ^^^ %^ . Before
the wall are two large scejDtres surmounted by the white crown ;
one of these is called Sar, ^ , i.e., Osiris, and the other Horus.
On the right hand of the boat of Ra are: — 1. Four gods, called
"bearers of light," ^ Iji 'V^ "^ ' ' ^"^^^^^^o ^^^^^ ^^ *^^®i^
right hands. 2. Four gods, called "bearers of stars," ^ ^ ^ ''
holding stars in their right hands. 3. Four gods " who go out,"
■^^ M y^i % . 4. The gods Ba, ^, Khnemu, fj, Tenter, ^ "^^ ,
and Tent, 'ww^^^ ram-headed. 5. Four gods, Horus, Horus-Sept,
Sept, and " he who is in his double boat," [1 - - \\ ^^^^ ^<— , hawk-
headed. 6. Eight women, the Hours, seated on coiled up serpents
and each holding a star in her hand ; these are the " protecting
hours," ^mTo'^^. 7. The god Sebek-Ra, crocodile-headed.
All these are personifications of stars which bear along the boat of
Ra towards the day-break, for they wish to see it floating once
more on the bosom of Nut, ; and when "the arms of the
ELEVENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT 201
" sky-god Nu receive Ra they shout praises with the stars which
'' they carry, and go to him in the heights of heaven in the bosom
of Nut."^ In connexion with the idea of the stars praising Ra
at sunrise we may note its similarity to that expressed in Job
xxxviii. 7, " When the morning stars sang together, and all the
"sons of God shouted for joy." On the left of the boat of Ra
are: — 1. Four beings, Setheniu-tep, s=i v> ^ i 7, wearing white
' /www —21 u I I
croAvns. 2. Four bearded gods called Akebiu, i.e., " wallers,"
h -^n^ J Qfl ' • 3- ^our beings, Khnemiu, <^ ^= % 1 , wearing red
crowns. 4. Four bearded gods called Renniu, ^AAAAA 0 (1 v ' •
AAAAAA I I —11 I
5. Twelve goddesses, the female counterparts of the first three
groups of gods. 6. Four gods, with bowed bodies, and 7. The
cat-headed goddess Mati, x U xv ' These beings were supposed to
place white crowns on the heads of the gods in the train of Ra,
and though their souls rose up, they were never able to leave this
Division of the Tuat or pass out of the pylon. Their duty was to
weep for Osiris after Ra had passed out of Ament,^ and to be with
him, as far as their souls were concerned, but their bodies had to
stay in their places ; they also had to raise up Maat and to stablish
it in the shrine of Ra.^ It was they who " fixed the period of the
" years which those who were decreed for the Tuat should pass
" there, and the period of those who were to live in heaven ; " *
but they " tore their hair in grief before the great god in Amentet,
" for although they drove away Set from the pylon they themselves
n AAAAAA /^ 'WV n I ^-^ X AAAAAA ^^AAAA ^X \ /^ AA^^Wi
I I I 1 I I ^^ ^ _fl F=^ 1 X c^^ I I I _M^ I I I I I I
Q — H — ^ "Q" ^ , ft , — » — ^— ==> O ^
A ^■^"-^^ ^ ^.-^. <cr> ^"•'''^ / , Bonomi and
Sharpe, op. cit., pi. 10.
r- -I \ TT\ AAAAAA
2 l\ V ^ I) UX ^'VVAAA -l^^ / ^ ^ <C^r> ^ / (J AA/WW rV/Ayi.
H \\ / I H— AAAAAA H ^ 4 H /^
3 — Q ^ - /Ci / ' — ' 'I ^
4
AAA/V^A
/v^A
AAAAAA /I tk I g
111 1^1 Ji?^ JI 1 I I
>X- ^-^ n AAAAAA f\ I n -Ci
-^ V AAAAAA ^Ov ! '-'
AA/W^^
202 ELEVENTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
" were not allowed to enter into the heights of heaven." ^ In the
centre of this division we have the boat of Ra being drawn along
by four of its gods as usual. Preceding these are : — 1. A group of
nine gods, each of whom holds a knife, ^=^~, in the right hand, and
a sceptre, [, in the left; the first four are jackal-headed. They
are described as the " nine gods who annihilate Apep," ^ 1 1 1 ^ i
/wwv^ n "^^ '^"^^. 2. The serpent Apep chained to the earth by five
chains which are called the "gods who produce winds," |Tj i -^C-^ JJ i.
3. Four apes, (l aaaaaa ^ Jj i , each holding before him a large hand.
4. The god of Amenti, ft, wearing the crown of the South.
5. The goddess of the North, Herit (?), ^.(-^ (Ifl "^ r wearing the
crown of the North. 6. The god Sebekhti, I J ^ "^ . These
gods of the Tuat say, " [This is] the exit from Ament, and the
" place for rest in the two divisions of Nu, and [the god] maketh
" his transformations in the hands of Nu. This god doth not enter
" heaven ( ^) , but he openeth the Tuat upwards in his trans-
*' formations [which take place] in Nu. What openeth the Tuat
" into heaven are the two hands of the god whose name is hidden.
He existeth in the darkness which is a solid thing,
|!|, and Ra cometh forth [in] it from the night,
' )f ' . Those who are in this portion take their knives in
III ^
" their hands, and grasp their weapons, and smite Apep, and effect
"his slaughter, and smash his joints which are in heaven. The
" chains of this fiend are in the hands of the children of Horus,
" they advance to the god with their fetters in their fingers. The
" god counteth his members after the hidden one hath opened his
" [arms] to the Eye of Horus. The Worm (| ^m^ i^'j who is
" in this scene is fettered by the children of Horus." The other
gods " acclaim Ka in the Eastern horizon of heaven, and the four
i
^il
i»
A I I I I I I I t I I U I AAA^wv a I
I I I <=> I -J ^ U [Zm A/WVAA ^ A I I I P^=^
aZ^ C:^ AAAAAA AAAAAA
TWELFTH DIVISION OF THE TUAT
203
" apes guide liim who created them, two on the right hand, and
" two on the left, to the double dtert (u <^ nru nr^) of this god."
The pylon of the Twelfth Division or Twelfth Hour is
called Tesert-baiu, '^m'> ^'^"> " I^sd-Souls," and its serpent
god is Sebi
and Akhekhi,
poles, each of which is surmounted
by a bearded head ; on one head is
the disk of the god Tem, and on the
other the beetle of the god Khepera,
i.e., two forms of the Sun-god. Close
to the pylon " Red-Souls " was the
pylon of the serpent god Reri,
11(|, each side of which was
guarded by the two uraei of Isis and
Nephthys, one on each side. When
Ra had passed through these doors he
emerged triumphantly from the Tuat,
and his boat floated on the waters of
Nu, i.e., in the sky. In the scene in
which this is depicted we see the boat
containing the beetle of Khepera and
the disk of Ra, with the five gods Seb,
Shu, Hek (for Heka), Hu, and Sa, and
the two goddesses Isis and Nephthys,
and three gods of pylons. The god Nu,
, is seen holding up the boat with
hands, which " come forth from
water, and bear up this god."
the two guardians of the corridor are Pai,
In front of the wall are two
his
the
A little distance away from the boat is a sort of island which is
formed by Osiris, the body of the god being bent round in such a
way as to cause the tips of his toes to touch the back of his head ;
the text says that it is Osiris himself who forms the encircling
border of the Tuat. On the head of the god stands the goddess
204 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
Nut, , with arms outstretched ready to receive E,a. Thus the
god reaches the end of the Tuat and passes by an opening through
its border, which is painted black, dotted everywhere Avith red
spots. We have seen that Ra was omnipotent in all divisions of
the underworld, except one, which was sacred to Osiris ; in this
neitlier Efi nor his name appears.
We may now pass on to the consideration of the contents of
the "Book of that which is in the Underworld." The
authorities for the text and viijnettes of this work are numerous/
and from the copies of both which have come down to us it is
1 See Sharpe, Egyptian Iii^criidioiis, 1st series, pll. 28-32 ; 2nd series, pU. 1-21 ;
Pierret, Eecueil, torn, v., pp. 103 if; Lanzono, Domicile des Esprits, Paris, 1879;
Birch, Papyrus of NasMem, London, 1863 ; Mariette, Papi/rns ^gyptiens, torn, ii.,
Cairo, 1878.
FIRST HOUR OF THE NIGHT 205
clear that the book was one of considerable leno;th. But Ions;
before the end of the XXIst Dynasty (about B.C. 1100) the
Egyptians found it impossible to obtain or to pay for complete
copies with all the vignettes, and a shortened form of it conse-
quently came into general use. This shortened form, which is
called an " Abrege " by M. Maspero, and a ''Resume" by M.
Lefebure, was supposed to contain all that was absolutely necessary
for the dead, and it became very popular throughout Egypt. In
the tomb of Seti I.-^ we find a copy of the full text, with vignettes,
of the first eleven hours, and also a copy of the " Abridgment."
The space at our disposal will not admit of a detailed description
of the longer work, and therefore a notice of the "Abridgment"
only is given here. The complete work is entitled, " The beginning
" of the horn of the West, the remote boundary of thick darkness,"
^MTf^^^-^^-I^T,- The "horn of
the West" means the most westerly point where the sun sets, and
kehu saimi, i.e., " thick darkness," or " solid darkness," refers to
the extreme end of the Tuat, which is painted to resemble a black
wall, dotted everywhere with red spots, and which contains an
opening through which the boat of Ra emerges every morning.
The shorter work is entitled "Abridgment of this book,"
A .Jl U 7TH U I ci:^> _a /ww^
The EiRST Hour of the night is called Ushemet hatu khefti
Ra,'^ i.e., " Crusher of the forehead of the enemies of Ra," and the
place through which the god passes in it is described as an mi'it,
<=> (1(1 , i.e., a hall, or a sort of ante-chamber of the Tuat. It
is quite unlike any part of the Tuat, for when Ra is in this hall he
1 See " Le Tombeau de Seti I"'," in Memoires de la Miss. Arch. Franqaise,
Paris, 1886 ; First Hour, part iv., pll. 24-26 : Second Hour, part iv., pll 29-32 ;
Third Hour, part iv., pll. 32-35 ; Fourth Hour, part i., pll. 23-25 ; Fifth Hour,
part i., pll, 26-29 ; Sixth Hour, part iv. , pll. 39-42 ; Seventh Hour, part iv., pll. 43-46 ;
Eighth Hour, part iv., pll. 47-49 ; Ninth Hour, part ii., pll. 15-18; Tenth Hour,
part ii., pll. 19-22 ; Eleventh Hour, part ii., pll. 23-26 ; and see Maspero, Les
Hypogees Boy mix de Thebes, p. 29.
3 See the edition of the hieroglyphic text, with a French translation, by
Jequier, op. cit., pp. 37 ff.
@x ^ _S) 1 ® ^ /^ ' <==
206
BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
has not yet arrived in that dismal valley. But even when here
he is an entirely different being from what he was in the day-time,
for instead of being the sun of day, he is the sun of night, i.e., a
dead god, in fact a mere dead body Avhich is called Af, 1] ooo^ i-e.,
" Flesh," and is represented with the head of a ram surmounted
by a solar disk. In the day time he travelled in the Atet boat,
The First Hour of the Night.
^nJ, but at night he made his journey along the river of the
Tuat in the Sektet boat, 1 ^ ^ <
^4tl5 , in fact, in the same boat in
which he sailed over the sky from noon to sunset. In the boat
with the dead Sun-god Af are AjD-uat, \/ ^^, "The Opener of
the ways," S a, .•^m ^\ , Heru-Hekenu, ^^ R -^ , ISTehes, |— , I,
Hu, fi v\ , the double of Shu, \_j n , the captain of the boat,
FIRST HOUR OF THE NIGHT 207
<=>%,U], and the "kdy of the boat," ^ ^^. The last-named
celestial personage changed every hour, for she represented the
local goddess of one hour who was supposed to be the appointed
guide of the god through one portion of the Tuat only ; knowing
the way through her own district, she was able to instruct the
captain of the boat how and where to sail over difficult reaches of
the river.
The dwellers in the First Hour of the night appear to
have been the apes who opened the doors of the drrit to the god,
and the beings who were necessary for the singing of songs of
praise to Ra, and for piloting his boat through this hall to the
Tuat, and a large number of celestial beings who are mentioned in
the text, but who are otherwise unknown, and the souls of the
dead who had passed from the earth to this intermediate place and
who were waiting for the opportunity of entering into the boat
of Ra, wherein they would fain continue their journey. Why the
last-named were here cannot be said, but it is probable that such
souls belonged to men and women who, when living upon earth,
were unable to avail themselves of all the costly and complicated
ceremonies prescribed by the priests, and the numerous amulets
which were thought to be necessary for the welfare of the soul in
the Tuat. The descriptive text of the First Hour reads : — " This
"god entereth from the earth into the drrit of the horizon of
"the West, and he must travel one hundred and twenty dtru
" (J\ ^^ "^ c=z) ) in this drrit before he arriveth at the gods
" of the Tuat. Net-Ra ^-^^ -_fl jj ) is the name of this first
\ ^ AA^yv\A O I ill/
" country of the Tuat. Ra giveth fields to the gods who are in his
" following, and he beginneth to pass decrees and to give commands
" concerning the things which are done in the Tuat by the gods of
" this country. Whosoever shall do these things according to this
" similitude of the hidden things of the Tuat, and shall recognize
" that they are similitudes of the great god himself, shall find them
" of benefit to him on the earth, and they shall do him good in the
" great Tuat." The fact that this region is called " country "
shows that it was regarded almost as a part of this world, and it
is definitely stated that it is 120 dtru in length; now, the dtric is
208 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
said to be the equivalent of the Greek ct)(oivo%, i.e., about an
English furlong, and thus the region of the sunset traversed by
Ra in his first hour would be fifteen miles in length. It is probable,
however, that 120 dtru were intended to be a greater distance
than fifteen miles, for the second hour brought Ra into the domain
of Osiris, which is more than fifteen miles from Thebes.
The name of the Second Hour is Shesat maket neb-s, i.e.,
" She who knoweth how to protect her lord." ^ The country
passed through is called Ur-nes, ^^^ — *— , Avhich the late Dr.
Birch compared with, and believed to be equivalent to, the Greek
ovpav6<; ; this name, however, seems to be that of the Nile in the
second region of the Tuat, and in any case it is not applied to any
other division or hour except by accident.^ The descriptive text
says, "This great god next arriveth in Ur-nes, which is three
' hundred and nine dtru in length, and one hundred and twenty
' dtru in width (i.e., this division measures about 50 miles by 15
' miles). The name of the gods who are in this country is ' Souls
' of the Tuat,' '^^ i i<: *^ Ji i , and he who knoweth their
' name shall be with them. This great god will give to him fields,
' the situation of which shall be in the country of Ur-nes ; he shall
' stand up with the gods who stand up, and he shall follow after
' this great god. He shall make his way through the Tuat, he
' shall see the tresses of the gods who wear long flowing hair, he
' shall trample upon the Eater of the Ass ( a ^^ "^ ^ ^^T 3),
' and after the division of the unoccupied land hath been made,
' he shall eat bread in the Boat of the Earth (% I] '^v UnS ),
' and there shall be given to him of the first things of Tatuba
' ( ■ ^ v\ J [1 r^)." The text adds that those who draw pictures
of these Souls of the Tuat and make ofterings to them upon
earth will gain benefit therefrom a million fold after death;
moreover, it will be extremely useful to them in the Tuat if they
know what words are addressed by the gods to the great god.
^
>k
2 See Jequier, op. cit. , p. 49, note 2.
210 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORT.D
The gods with long flowing hair are the four children of Horus,
Mestha, Hapi, Tuamutef and Qebhsennuf, each of whom wore a
lock or tress of hair, which became a pillar-sceptre, and supported
one of the four corners of heaven ; these four gods became at a
later period the gods of the cardinal points and the lords of the
four quarters of heaven. The Eater of the Ass is, of course, the
great serpent of darkness, probably Apepi, and the Ass is a form
of the Sun-god, between whom and the serpent was continual war ;
the Ass was connected with the Sun-god by reason of his great
virile powers. According to M. Maspero,^ the Boat of the Earth
is a name given to the Boat of Ra when it reaches the earth ;
Tatuba was probably an earth god.
The illustrated version of the Second Hour shows that the
boat of Ra was preceded by four boats. The first of these had a
human head on each end, and on its side were the picture of
heaven, f=^, and the Utchat, '^J- ^^ *^® ^^^* rests the moon on
a pedestal, and behind it is the god who sets up the feather of
Maat. This is the boat of Osiris as the Moon, who is one of
the Souls of the Tuat. The second boat has a ]mman head sur-
mounted by the plumes of x\men, [jl , on each end, and in it is a
huge sistrum, the emblem of Hathor ; on each side of it is a
ooddess. In the bows is a beetle, S. This is the boat of Isis as
Hathor, who is one of the Souls of the Tuat. The third boat has
the white crown at the bows, and the red crown at the stern ; in
it, between the two standards, which are the symbols of the gods
Anpu (Anubis) and Apuat, is a huge lizard,' out of the back of
which spring a human head and the Avhite crown. This is the
boat of the god who opens the ways, and who is one of the Souls
of the Tuat. The fourth boat has a uraeus at the bows and
stern. In the centre is a kneeling woman Avithout arms, and
on each side of her stands a woman also armless ; at each end of
the boat is a plant, or shrub. This is the boat of Nepr, □ | J] ,
the god of grain and of vegetation, and a form of Osiris, and he is
also one of the Souls of the Tuat. The "^ods who minister to
C)^
^ Les llypogecs, p. 46.
SECOND HOUR OF THE NIGHT 211
Osiris in the Second Hour are : — Isis who avengeth, J] ^ '"°' ^^ ,
Seb of the two corners, "^^ « ^^^ ^ Khnemu of the two
corners, fj \\ 1 , Thoth on his stairs, .'^ ^^ /wwvs /I 2^.^=^
Afu on his stairs, n ^^^-^ % ^^ aaa/wv ^ ^^^^^ Ketuit-ten-ba,
^^5^ ^ ^^ y Kherp - hu - khefti, ^ i /i
^ (^ 11 i I /wvw\ ^ jr'' ---r V-- "v..>,., I T5=^ j^ ^'"xx III'
Heru-Tuat, ^^ >ic , Seben-hesq-khaibit, 1 fl wwv. o ^^""^^
T ^, the two ape-gods Benth, J a^^wna \ and Aana, h ;^^^, the god
with two faces, 2^-=^ , Horus-Set, Mest-en-Asar, ^^^ A^^AA^ jj ^
Met-en-Asar, 11 a^^na J] , the term of Osiris, and a lion-headed
ffoddess Sesenet-khu, '^^::^ ^^ i . Behind all these come seven
goddesses, Mest-tcheses, |T| -^1 , Amam-mitu,
j^^^, Her-tuaiu, ^^^^j, Sekhet of Thebes, ^^f'=^,
Amet-tcheru, /=: ^ Vi. , Ament-nefert, (I /vaaaaa rv^-vn T <ci:=> , and
Nit-tep- Ament, >/ ^ ^ (1 /ww^ . On the other side of the boat of
the god are Nebui, aaaaaa J (1 f ]\ , Besabes-uaa, J — «— "^^ u — *—
^-^^, Nepr, □ I, Tepu, ^^@, Hetch-a, Y^ a, Ab,
a Jl Y , Nepen, D , Ar-ast-neter, (1 <=^ jj "^ T I , Amu-aa,
Heru-khabit, ^. ^— J (](] ^ df)? Anubis, Osiris-
r=vi
Unnefer, Khui, '^^^ Ol], Horus of the two faces, i.e., Horus and
Set, Hen-Heru, 0 ^. , Hun, « ^^ Qn ? Hatchetchu, fi .^l ^^ ,
Nehr, ~^^|^|j, Makhi, yi\!\, Renpti, ^ ^^°; f f ,
Afau, ° "^ % , and Fa-trau, ^^^ ^\ %\ "^ ^ { ' • All
these gods worship the great god, and guide him on his way, and
weep when he has left them ; some of them bear to him the
prayers of those who are upon earth, and also lead disembodied
souls to the forms which belong to them ; others apparently
mark the seasons of the year. When Ra addressed the beings
there, they came to life at the sound of his voice, and they breathed
212 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
again ; he gave them food in abundance, and the gods gave water
to the spirits to drink at his command, and the hearts of the rebels
of Ra were burnt in the fire. It is, however, clear from the
texts that although Osiris was the Lord of the Second Hour Ra
was the overlord of Osiris, and that it was he who, like Osiris, made
gifts to the dead. On the other hand, the followers of Osiris had
to perform service for Ra, and one of their chief duties consisted in
keeping in check his enemies, who were always attempting to
prevent the progress of his boat ; in a way the service of these
followers was unrewarded, for they were condemned to remain
always in the same place, and to perform the same duty.
From the above paragraph the reader will gain some idea of
the difference between the illustrated version of the Second Hour
and the abstract of it which is found in the '' Abridgment." As
the short version makes no attempt to supply the souls which were
supposed to make use of it Avith the names of the various gods and
beings in it, we can only assume that they learnt them when on
earth in the body. The larger version of the Second Hour is
extremely interesting in showing Avhat a subordinate place the
priests of Amen-Ra made Osiris occupy in respect of Ra when
passing through the Tuat.
The descriptive text of the Third Hour, which is called
Tent-baiu,^ says : — " This great god next arrives in the Country
" of those who slay ( jjjjj] "^ '^'^'^^ ^ vfl ' )' ^^^^ ^^® roweth over
' the Stream of Osiris ( aaaaaa H j] I, a space three hundred and
"nine dtru long,^ and one hundred and twenty dtru wide (i.e.,
"this portion of the Tuat measured about SS^ miles long by 15
"miles wide). This great god giveth commands to the gods who
" are in the following of Osiris concerning this city, and he assigns
" to them estates from this country. The name of the gods who
"are in this field is 'Hidden Souls' (^^ ^^ :1 I), and whosoever
"knoweth their name shall ascend to the place where Osiris is,
~ A variant given by Jcquier gives 480 dtru as the lengtl), i.e., about sixty
miles.
•214 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
"and Avater shall be given unto him for ihis Field. The name
(/VWAAA A^\AAAA \l— 1/ C\
"^ AAAAA^ 1^ i — 1
e^^~^ o\ x\ ^ I I J . Whosoever shall make drawino-s of these
'^ Hidden Souls together with a representation of the hidden
" things of the Tuat — beginning the same from the West — it shall
"be of great benefit not only to him upon earth, but in the Under-
" world, and indeed always. Whosoever knoweth them shall pass
" [unhurt] by them as they roar, and shall not fall into their
" cauldrons. Whosoever knoweth these things, being attached to
"his place, shall have his bread with Ra. Whosoever, being a
" soul and a spirit, knoweth these things shall have the mastery
" over his legs, and he shall never enter into the place of destruc-
" tion, and he shall come forth in his forms and smell the air at his
" appointed hour." The illustrated version of the Third Hour
represents the boat of Ra sailing over the "Stream of Osiris"
preceded by three boats, each of which is moved onwards by two
men with paddles ; the beings in these boats are all forms of the
god Osiris, and the gods who stand on each side of the stream
belong to his cycle, or company. These latter had their bodies of
flesh, to which their shadows had been re-united, and their souls
talked in them, as soon as Ra had spoken to them ; they made
answer to the god, and sang his praise whilst he was with them,
but their cries of joy changed to lamentations when he left them.
They could not go with him, because it was their duty to guard
their district, and to destroy the enemies of Ra, and to support the
life of Ra, and to make the Nile to flow.
Amons; the o-ods in this Hour were the nine forms of the o-od
Osiris : — Osiris, lord of Ament, ^ ^^z^ ft ; Osiris Khenti-Ament,
i ftltll? Osiris the Throne, I] jl^-!!; Osiris, conqueror of
millions, f\ ^5y^ ^ ; Osiris the double of Ament, 11 LJ ft '
Osiris on his staircase, \\ f==^ ^ dzLJ ; Osiris prince of the gods,
i Y 1 il,; Osiris kino- of Lower Esjypt, J] \pS-ApS^\ and
Osiris-Sahu, Jj 1_1- The duties of the beings who are grouped
with these are clear from their names, for these refer to destruction
THIRD HOUR OF THE NIGHT 215
in one form or another, and the explanatory text tells us that they
are employed in "hacking and cutting souls, in shutting up the
" shadows of the dead, and in dragging the occupants of tombs to
" their place of slaughter ; " moreover, they shoot out flames, they
cause fires to come into being, and the heads of the enemies of Ra
are cut off by their swords. The master of the region traversed
in the Third Hour is called Khatra, ^ [1 , and we learn from the
speech of Ra that the inhabitants of the mythological district over
which he presides were created by Ra specially to follow and to
protect Osiris. To these he says, " 0 ye whom I have hidden,
whose souls I have put in a secret place, Avhom I have set in the
following of Osiris to defend him ; to accompany his images, to
make an end of those who attack him (even as the god Hu is
behind thee, 0 Osiris, to defend thee, to accompany thy images,
to destroy those who attack thee, even as Hu is to thee, 0 Osiris,
and even as Sa is to thee, 0 Khenti Amentet), ye souls whose
forms are stablished, ye souls whose magical powers make
certain your coming into being, who breathe the air [through
your nostrils, who look] with your faces, who listen with your
ears, who are apparelled in your raiment, who are clothed with
your swathings, who have ofl^erings made to you at stated seasons
by the priests of God, who have estates set apart for your own
behoof and benefit, whose souls are not cast down, whose bodies
are not overthrown : [0 Hidden Souls, I say] open ye your
circles, and set ye yourselves in your own places, for I have
come to see my bodies, and to look upon the similitudes of myself
which are in the Tuat, and it is you who have brought me along
and have given me the opportunity of coming to them. And
now I lead thy soul to heaven, 0 Osiris, and thy soul to earth, 0
Khenti Aukert, with thy gods behind thee, and thy spirits before
thee, and thy being and thy forms [about thee]. And thy spirit
hath its word of power, 0 Osiris, and you, ye spirits who are in
the following of Osiris, have your Avords of power. I go up on
the earth and the day is behind me ; I pass through the night,
and my soul rejoins itself to your forms during the day, and I
fulfil the ceremonies of the night which are needful for you. I
216 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
" have created your souls for mine own use, so that they may be
" behind me, and what I have done for them will preserve you
" from falling down to the place of destruction." ^
The Fourth Hour of the night, which is called Sekhemus,"
conducts the boat of the Sun-god through a region of a very
different character froin the earlier divisions. The descriptive text
says, " The majesty of this great god next arriveth in the hidden
" Circle of Amentet, and he performeth the designs of the gods
"who are therein by means of his voice without seeing them.
"The name of this Circle is Ankhet-kheperu (■¥■ S \> \M ')'
"and the name of the pylon of this Circle is Ament-sthau
" (h ^ Vv v\ "^ crzn] . Whosoever knoweth this plan
\1 /www c=^^ s= _^ Jr y^ 111 / i
" of the hidden paths of Ee-stau ( ~^~ f^-^^j , and of the
"winding roads of the Ammeliet (l\ /=z ^t\ | "^ J , and of the
" hidden pylons which are in the Land of Seker, he who is on his
" sand shall eat the bread which hath been prepared for the mouth
" of the living gods who are in the temple of Tem. He who
"knoweth these things shall [know] the paths rightly, and shall
"have power to journey along the roads of Re-stau, and to see
"the forms (or guides) in the Ammehet." The Circle Ammehet
is, as we learn from Chapter cxlix of the Book of the Dead, the
Sixth Aat, or district of the domain of Osiris which is presided
over by the god Seker ; the deceased addresses it thus :— " Hail,
"thou Ammeliet which art holy unto the gods, and art hidden
" for the spirits, and art baleful unto the dead ; the name of the
" god who dwelleth in thee is Sekher-At (?) [or Sekher-remu].
" Homage to thee, 0 Ammehet, I have come to see the gods who
" dwell in thee. Uncover your faces and put off your head-dresses
" when ye meet me, for, behold, I am a mighty god among you,
" and I have come to prejDare provisions for you. Let not Sekher-
" At (?) have dominion over me, let not the divine slaughterers
1 See Maspero, Les Hiqjogees, p. 64.
FOURTH HOUR OF THE NIGHT
217
" come after me, let not the murderous fiends come after me, but
" let me live upon sepulchral offerings among you." ^
The illustrated edition of the Fourth Hour shows us the boat
of Ra passing through an entirely new country, in fact a region
Avhich is filled with huge and fearsome snakes, and represents the
region over which the god Seker presides. Here there is no river
with banks lined with the gods and the souls of the dead, and here
See my Chapters of Coming Forth hy Day (Translation), p. 267.
^^>^
218 BOOK OF THE UNDERAVORLD
there are no fields to be distributed by Ra among the faithful
followers of himself and of Osiris ; indeed there are so few beings
to render him service that he is obliged to betake himself to
another kind of boat, and the god of day is compelled to glide
through the passages of the dark and gloomy land almost without
a following of gods. Ra stands within a shrine in his boat as
before, but the boat itself is formed of a serpent with a head at
each end of his body ; this boat is hauled over the sandy ground of
the god " who is upon his sand " by gods of the company of Osiris,
with whom, however, are mingled the gods of the company of Ptali
of Memphis, and Osiris himself is merged in Seker and becomes
Osiris Seker. The narrow way, or road, of Re-stau has three doors,
which are called Mates-sma-ta, ^^ c-=-^ ''=^, z, ^^ Y
Metes-mau-at, ¥\ ^==;>,. .==^ i , and Metes-neheh, ^|\ ^
AAAAAA Q 0
1k 0 0 O 5 ^^^ ^y these it is divided into three parts. Into one
part the god Ra neither enters nor travels, but the door thereof
obeys his voice ; in another part is the body of Seker, who is on
his sand, the hidden form which can be neither looked at nor seen ;
another part is that through which Seker passeth, but neither the
gods, nor the spirits, nor the dead go through it, and it is filled
with the souls which have been consumed by the fire that comes
forth from the mouth of the goddess Am-mit. The region through
which the boat of Ra travels is full of thick darkness, and the light
which the god usually emits is unable to penetrate it ; in this
difficulty he is helped upon his way by the light of the flames of
fire which issue from the mouth of the serpent which forms the
body of his boat. Among the gods who march in front of the boat
are Thoth and Horus, who stand facing each other with outstretched
hands in which they hold an Utchat, '^J, which is here to be
identified with the god Seker. The serpents which are passed by
the god are of various kinds and of diiFerent sizes. The first,
called Hetch-nau, (ii ? ^H* V' ^^^^ ^* ^^^^ length in a boat,
each end of which terminates in a human head, and is the
guardian of Seker ; the second is three-headed, and he moves over
the ground on four human legs and feet ; the third is called Amen,
220 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
n ; the fourth is Hekent, ? ^^^. and has a human head
growing out of its body just above the tail ; and the fifth is
Menmenu, O v\ UHt , which has three heads, and bears on
AWAAA AftAAAA
its back fourteen stars and fourteen human heads surmounted by
disks. Next we have three huge serpents near the great scorpion
Ankhet, -V- ^ , and a huge uraeus, to which Hbations are being
poured out by a man ; and a three-headed serpent, with wings,
which moves along on four human feet and legs ; and the serpent
Neheb-kau, ^'ww\ o J LJ , ^ which has two heads at one end of its
body, and one head at the other. All these monsters are said to
make their journey daily round about tlie region of the Fourth
Hour, and they live upon what they find on their way.
The last hour, as we have seen, is a part of the dominions of
Seker, but the Fifth Hour, which is called Semit-her-abt-uaa-s,^
contains his capital city. The descriptive text says, "This great
" god is drawn along over the actual roads of the Tuat, and over
" the hidden Circle of Seker, the god who is on his sand, and he
"neither seetli nor looketh upon the hidden figure of the land
" which containeth the flesh of this god. The gods who are with
" this god hear the voice of Ra-Heru (?), and they adore him at
" the seasons of this god. The name of the pylon of this city is
" Aha-neteru, a f a | " ' and the name of this Circle is
" Ament, (1 . [Here are] the secret ways of Anient, and
" the doors of the house of Ament, and the habitable house
"( JMK— »— in of the earth of Seker, and his flesh, and his
" members, and his body, in their primeval forms. The name of
" those who are in this Circle is ' Baiu amu Tuat ' (i.e.. Souls in the
" Tuat). The forms who are in their hours and their hidden beings
" neither see nor look upon this form of Seker himself. Whosoever
" maketh a picture of these things which are in Ament in the Tuat,
" to the south of the hidden house, and whosoever knoweth these
"things, his soul shall be at peace, and he shall be satisfied
222 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
*' with the offerings of Seker. And Khemit (^ ^^ (](j ^ J|^ shall
"not hack his. body in pieces, and he shall go to her in peace.
" Whosoever shall make offerings to these gods upon earth shall
" [find] them of benefit to him in the Tuat."
The illustrated version of the Fifth Hour shows us Ra
travelling in his serpent boat and being towed along by seven gods
and seven goddesses, who represent the gods of fourteen days of
the month ; before these are the divine sovereign chiefs, i.e.,
Her-khu, p=^ ® ^ ) |, An-hetep, ^ =^^ Her-liequi, ^^ TT,
and H etch-met ? II . Half way through the hour Ra comes to a
mound of sand, the top of which is surmounted by the head of a
woman, whereon rests the forepart of a beetle, only one half of
which is visible, symbol of the god Khepera ; this head indicates
the position of the hidden abode wherein is Seker, and when the
beetle alights upon it the god Khepera holds converse with that
god. Immediately beneath the head is the " Land of Seker,"
which has the shape'czzD, and is described as the " hidden land of
" Seker which guardeth the hidden flesh ; " it is surrounded by a
wall of sand, and at each end, outside the wall, is a sphinx with
the head of a man and the body of a lion. Inside this land is
a two-headed, winged serpent, with a tail which terminates in a
human head ; between the wings stands a figure of the hawk-
headed god Seker ; this serpent monster represents the god
watching over his own image. The two sphinxes are Avatched by
two serpents, Tepan, i\ -^m^ , and Ankh-aapau, ^ (I ^ ^^ (© ;
the first serpent enters into the presence of this god, and carries
to him daily the offerings which are made by the living, but the
second never leaves his place, and lives upon the flames which
proceed from his own mouth. Before the second serpent are four
seated gods, who bear on their knees the emblems of "hidden
symbols" of Seker, i.e., /J, W , S^ , and \u, and rest by the side
of a lake of water called Nut, \,^^^~^- lor those who are ni
_-Zl /VywXA
this lake its waters are like fire, and each of the heads of the four
gods v.'-hich rise above them bears upon it the symbol of fire. The
lake is watched over by the company of gods of Ra, represented
FIFTH HOUR OF THE NIGHT
223
by nine axes, and five gods. But before Ra has jD^ssed through
the Fifth Hour he arrives at a large vaulted chamber, filled with
sand, and called ^^^, i.e., "Night," and on each side, clinging by-
its claws, is a hawk ; from the lower part of it goes forth the
224 BOOK OF THE UNDERWORLD
beetle, only one half of which is visible. This beetle, or Khepera,
typified the germ of life, and when the boat of Ra was drawn on
to the top of the mound of sand already described, it Avas supposed
to stop on it as it passed, and having done so, it went to the dead
god and raised him up to life. This chamber Avas guarded by a
two-headed serpent called Ter, ^^^^^ • | HHt , and it had to be
jealously watched in order to prevent the entrance of any one who
would disturb or destroy the germ of life. A little beyond the
chamber of sand is a group of seven gods, whose duty it was to
inspect the slaughter of the dead in the Tuat, and to consume
their bodies by the flames of their mouths in the course of each
day; and a little further on is the goddess who "lives upon the
blood of the dead," and who is occupied in slaying a man doomed
to die by the gods. When the boat of Rri arrived at the end of
the Fifth Hour he saw the star of the " living god, who journeyeth,
" and journeyeth and passeth," T ^ (] ^^^^'^^. Dr. Brugsch,
and following him M. Maspero, and others, have identified this
star with the planet Venus, the star of the morning, and the
identification is undoubtedly correct. This is an important fact,
for, as M. Jequier has pointed out,^ coupled with the representa-
tion of the beetle going forth from the night to 23lace itself in the
boat of Ra, it shows us that the domain of Seker, although reduced
to two hours which have been inserted in their proper geographical
position in the Tuat, certainly at one time formed a complete hell,
and that the rising of the sun was the final event which took place
in it.
The Sixth Hour, which is called Mesperit-arat-maatu,^
brings us to the neighbourhood of the shrines of Osiris in the
Delta. The descriptive text says, " When this great god arriveth
" at the abyss of water, which is the lady of the gods of the Tuat,
" he holdeth discourse with the gods who are there, and he giveth
" the command for them to obtain the mastery over their oiFerings
) in this city. He saileth in this [Field] being
"(1
I I r
' Le Livre de ce qn'il y a dans I'Hades, p. 7C).
^ %\ u nil ^ II ~j] ■:^^ <=> "^ ^-^ i< .
THE PITS OF THE TUAT
225
" provided with his boat, and he commandeth them [to have] their
"fields for their offerings, and he giveth them water for their
" streams as they go about the Tuat each day. The name of the
). The
/ — ** — A r
"pylon of this city is Sept-metu ( ° A ^
" hidden path of Amentet, on the stream of whicli this great god
Q
226 THE SIXTH HOUR
' journeyeth in his boat to perform the affairs of the gods of the
" Tuat, and the collecting of their names, and the manner in which
" their forms rest, and all that appertaineth to their hidden hours,
" and the hidden similitude of the Tuat, are unknown .... The
" majesty of this god uttereth words, and he giveth divine offerings
" to the gods who are in the Tuat, and he standeth near them ;
" they see him, and they have the mastery over their fields and
''over the gifts which are made to them, and they have their
"beings through the command which this great god, who is
" mighty of words, giveth unto them. The name of this district
is Metchet-nebt-Tuatiu (°^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^')-" ^^®
/WW\A
third paragraph of the text promises to those who make pictures
of the Sixth Hour a participation in the offerings which have
been made to the gods in the train of Osiris, and also that
offerings shall be made to them by their kinsfolk on earth.
The illustrated edition of the Sixth Hour shows us that Ea
has no longer any need of the boat which was made of the body of
a serpent wherein he passed through the realm of Seker, and that
he is once again in his old boat and sailing over the waters of the
stream in the Tuat. In front of his boat are: — 1. Thoth, who is
called Khenti-Tuat, and who is represented by a dog-headed god
holding an ibis on his out-stretched right hand ; and 2. the goddess
. A ,""""", H — n I M
Ament-semu-set, [j /^ -^ ' ' ^ • Beyond these is a large
house with sixteen divisions, in each of which is a god in mummied
form; these represent the mansions of Osiris, and four contain
kings of the South, four contain kings of the North, four contain
Heteptiu, ^ ^ ^ i , and four contain Spirits. All these form the
guardians of a huge five-headed serpent called Ash-hrau, "^^ '^ I ,
. "^ I I I
the body of which is bent round into an irregular oval in such a
way that his tail almost touches one of his heads. Lying on his
back within this oval is a god who is called 7Vfu, o:, i.e., "Flesh,"
and as he is touching with his right hand the leg of a beetle which
he holds on his head, we may assume that he represents the dead
body of Khepera, and is the opposite of the Sun-god in his boat,
who is called "Flesh of Ra," Iq, The sixteen gods mentioned
228 THE SIXTH HOUR
above are addressed by Ra, who commands them to be happy with
their offerings, and to protect him, and to slay the serpent Apepi ;
they hearken to his voice, and the text goes on to say that it is
the voice of Ra which will make the god within the folds of the
serpent Ash-hrau and the beetle upon his head to move. With
these must be mentioned the double company of the gods of Osiris,
one company being de|)icted in human form sitting on invisible
thrones; these are: — Hetep-Henti-Tuat, ^, Ast-amhit, ji
(j ^ I f)^ "^^ Asar-am-ab-neteru, jj "[}- "^ "] ,1,5 Heru-khenti-
Ahet-f. ^ (Ull ^ J I ^, ^!f ■^""■*"^' J - ^^ i> ^ i ■^'
Maa-ab-khenti-aht-f, ^^ "^ fd]] ^ ^ i '^ ' ^^^ t^^i'ee gods whose
names are not given. The second company of nine gods is repre-
sented by nine sceptres, each of which has a knife fixed at its base,
^==>^ I ; the first three are surmounted by the white crowns, Q ,
the second three by the red crowns, \J , and the third three by
uraei, Tjr. . Next we have the lion god Ka-hemhem, \_\ ^ ^ ,
with Isis, and Horus, and the mummied figure, £= ^^^'^ ^^^^ \ •>
armed with [, and, ^^:;>^, who keep guard over the three houses
of Ra, each of which is protected by a serpent god standing upon
its tail and emitting fire from its mouth. The first house is called
Het-tua-Ra O [J ^ , and has for its symbol "3^, and the sign ^SSii ;
the second is called Het-stau-Kher-aha-Rii, O J ~^^ /I\ Ck2l ? and
has for its symbol, ^^ ; and the third is called Het-temtet-Ra,
n cr^ij c=^^ z^ ^ ^^^ ^^g £^^ -^g symbol, ^, the head of a man. On
the left hand side of the boat of the Sun-god are two gods
whose names are wanting, Alii, (] |^ UQ? Netch-atef, °^ | u "^ ,
Ankh-hra, ^'^, Met-lira, | '^ (Sept-hra ^'^p), Netch-pautti,
^^ "^ O . the goddesses Antheth, n /wwsa , Henhenith,
\i^ (](] =., Hemt, ^ ^_^, and Sehith, p | (j(j s=; and the
monster serpent Am-khu, o ^^ ® ^ | | ' which bears on its
back the heads of the four Children of Horus, Mestha, Hapi,
230 THE SEVENTH HOUR
Tuamutef, and Qebhsennuf. The duty of this serpent is to devour
the shadows and the spirits of the enemies of Ra, who are over-
thrown in the Tuat. The monster is followed by the four earthly
forms of Osiris, Kai, S'^flfl, Meni-ret, r^^ fl[] |, Enen-retui,
^^^ ^^, and Urt, <=>, and nine fire-spitting serpents armed
with knives, which are Ta-thenen, ^_ "^^^ , Tem, Khepera, Shu,
Seb, Osiris, Horus, Apu, \/\, and Hetepui, ^^. The duty
of these gods consisted in destroying the enemies of Khepera,
and in cutting up their shadows; they lived in Nu and in the
water of Ta-thenen, and Khepera by means of his magical power
daily made them to breathe through the word of Ra.
The Seventh Houe, which is called Khesef-haa-heseq-Neha-
HRA,^ takes us into the region of the Tuat which contains the
hidden abode of the god Osiris. The descriptive text says,
" When the majesty of this great god arriveth in the hidden abode
" (Tephet ^ | "^ ) of Osiris, he addresseth to the gods who are
" there [suitable] words. This god maketh to himself other forms
"for this hidden abode, so that he may turn back the way for
"Apep by means of the magical words of Isis, and the magical
" words of Ser, 1^ 3 . The name of the pylon of this city through
" Avhich the god journeyeth is ' Gate of Osiris ' (<:> ^ ^ IJ j] ^) '
"and the name of the city is Tephet-shetat ((-, 8^ ^ J.
" This great god passeth over the hidden way of Amentet in his
" boat which is endowed with magical powers, and he journeyeth
" over it when there is no stream in it, and when there are none to
" tow him. He per forme th this by means of the words of power
" of Isis and of Ser, and by means of the mighty words of power
" which proceed from his own mouth, and in this region of the
"Tuat he inflicteth with the knife wounds upon Apep, whose
" place is in heaven." The man who shall make a picture of the
things which are to the north of the hidden house of the Tuat shall
find it of great benefit to him both in heaven and on earth ; and
^'^^
THE SEVENTH HOUR
231
he who knows it shall be among the spirits near Ra, and he who
recites the words of Isis and Ser shall repulse Apep in Amentet,
and he shall have a place on the boat of Ra both in heaven and
upon earth. The man who knows not this picture shall never be
able to repulse the serpent Neha-hra.
The text continues, " The shallows of the land of Neha-hra are
232 THE SEVENTH HOUR
"450 cubits long, and it is filled with his folds, but over one
" portion thereof this great god joumeyeth not when he travelleth
" to the hidden abode of Osiris, for he journey eth through this city
" under the form of the god Mehen, (°^ iMi) • Neha-hra shall
"never drink the water of him that knoweth this, and the
" soul which knoweth it shall never be given over to the violence
" of the gods who are in this Circle ; and the crocodile Ab-she
" ( Q I "X (zszi) shall never eat the soul of him that knoweth it."
From what is said above we see that the boat of Ra has arrived at
a shallow place in the celestial stream where there is not enough
water to float the boat, or even to allow it to be towed ; moreover,
the serpent Neha-hra opposes the advance of the god. In this
difficulty Isis, the great enchantress, enters the boat, and standing
in the bows utters the words which make it proceed on its way.
Neha-hra, as we see from the illustrated edition of the hour, is
seized bv Serqet and Her-tesu-f, "^ ^""^ '^"==-? and held in
bonds, and is transfixed to the ground by six knives ; thus Ra,
with the serpent Mehen over him in the form of a canopy, moves
on without let or hindrance. Behind the monster serpent stand
four goddesses, each armed with a huge knife, whose duty it is to
guard the tombs of the four forms of Osiris ; the names of the
four goddesses are : — Temtith, / — [I l\ s=3 , Tenith,
Nakith, ^ (] -^3^ (j () s= , and Hetemitet, | jj fjl) ^- Their duty
was to drive away the enemies of Ra, and to hack in pieces with
their awful knives the fiend Apep every day. The four tombs of
Osiris are rectangular buildings, and inside each is a bed or small
mound of sand Avhereunder lie the dead souls of the god, which are
known by the names Tem, Khepera, Ra, and Osiris. At each end
of each tomb is a human head, which is said to come forth from
the tombs whenever it hears the voice of Ra, and after he has
passed " they eat their own forms," i.e., the heads disappear from
sight. It was, no doubt, a custom in predynastic times to slay
slaves at the graves of kings and nobles, just as in many parts of
the world it has been the custom to kill human beings and to lay
their bodies beneath the foundations of buildings which were to
THE SEVENTH HOUR
233
234 THE SEVENTH HOUR
be erected in order that the souls of the slaughtered might protect
them and keep away evil spirits. The human heads on the tombs
of Osiris probably represent a tradition that, when Osiris was
buried, human sacrifices were offered at his tomb for this or
for some similar purpose/ This view has been well discussed by
M. Lefebure, who has done so much to illustrate the religious
and funeral customs of the ancient Egyptians,^ and some allusion
to it is probably made by Horapollo,^ who says that when they
wanted to represent (jivXaKTtjpLou they were wont to draw two
human heads, one male and the other female, that of the male
looking inwards, and that of the female outwards. These heads
would keep away the attack of any evil spirit, even if no inscription
was placed with them.
The other illustrations of this hour show us the god Af-Asar,
(^(^(^<^(^(^(^ (1 ^.^ ^ J , i.e., ''Flesh of Osiris," seated under a
canopy made by the body of a form of the serpent Mehen called
Ankh-aru-tchefau, •?■ ^^^^ , with the human-headed serpent
1 (2 111 I I I
Ankhtith, ■?■■?■ ^ ^\ and the lion-headed goddess Hekenth, ^ s=5 ,
behind him ; a little further behind is the god Shepes, —*— ,
a form of Thoth. Before the god kneel three figures, whose heads
have been cut off by a cat-headed god, and lying on the ground
are three beings who have been fettered by the god Anku,
[1 v\ , these represent the enemies of Osiris whose souls have
been plucked out, and whose shadows have been hacked in pieces
because they rebelled against the lord of the Tuat. Before these
are three human-headed hawks wearing double crowns, and they
represent the souls of the "living;" and on a serpent near is seated
on a throne the god Af-Tem, tl "^ | n^^=' i-®-' "Flesh of
Tem." Among the other gods in this hour is "Horus on his
throne," and before him are a company of gods who have been
1 See Maspero, Les Hypogees, p. 104 ; Jequier, op. cit., p. 94,
" Bites J^ayptiens, pp. 4 ff., 18 ff.
^ ^vXaKTrjpiov 8k ypacf>eLV jioyXofxtvoi, Zvo Kc^aAas avdpioirwv t,(oypa<f>ov(n, Tr]V fxev
Tov apcrevos tcro) (3k€irovcrav, Tr]v Be 6rjKvKr]v 'e$oi. ourco yap (^acnv ovhlv T^^iv Sai/xovLiov
icfyaxj/eTai, eTretSr/ kol ^wpis ypafxixaTOiV, k.t.X. Ilteroglyplnca, i. 24.
236
THE EIGHTH HOUR
joined to their stars, and the goddesses of the twelve hours.
Facing these companies is the crocodile " Ab-sha-am-Tuat,"
^ a I X ^^^ -Ij- ^ , who acts as guardian of the tomb of Osiris
and of what is in it. When Ra passes by the crocodile, which is
described as " Osiris, the Eye of Ra," this beast is fascinated and
made helpless by the words so long as the god is speaking to him,
and the dead Osiris, who is in the ground under the crocodile,
puts up his head that he also may look at the Sun-god ; the
^ V
•-•-' — - ....•.•■••■•.. ». •.•/.■•...« •.\.....ij.... .■^..•> ■•■ ..J
The Seventh Hour of the Night.
followers of Osiris also seize the opportunity of gazing upon Ra,
and do so without risk of being devoured by the monster which
is temporarily enchanted.
The Eighth Houk, which is called Nebt Ushau,^ brings us
into a very interesting division of the Tuat ; the name of its pylon
^M^'^^l-
238 THE CIRCLES OF THE TUAT
is Aha-en-urt-nef, - — o f ^^ ^^^ ,' and the name of the
city is Tebat-neteru-s, c^? 11 "J^ f 1 ,!,Il^- Ra passes through
this division in his boat under the protection of Mehen, and its
gods tow him at the command of this mighty snake ; he sees all
the gods in their various Circles, and those " who are on their
sand," and he addresses words to them. They come out of their
secret abodes when the god passes by, and the doors thereof open
of their own accord. In this Hour only gods and spirits who
have been mummified and buried with appropriate rites are to
be found, and, though dead, they quickly come to life again at
the words of Ra, who exhorts them to put an end to all the
enemies of his who are to be found in that region. The illustrated
edition of the Hour shows us the boat of the god being towed
along, and in front of it are nine large signs, the forms of which
are based upon the hieroglyphic character n shesu or shemsuy i,e.,
" follower " or " servant." From the top of seven of these is
suspended a human head, which shows that we are actually
dealing with beings who are in the following of Osiris, and before
each is the hieroglyphic for " linen," JJ^. These nine remarkable
objects represent beings who have been mummified in the manner
prescribed by Horus, and who are suitably provided with funeral
bandages ; they are described as beings whose whole life is in
their heads, and when Ra calls to them by their names they imme-
diately seize his enemies everywhere and cut off their heads
with their knives. Before these are the four forms of the
o^od Ta-thenen, ^\ '''''^ , which are depicted as rams and are
described as " form one," O, "form two," S^? "form three,"
QQ^, and " form four," ^S^M- On each side of the way
by which Ra journeys are five Circles.
The door of the first Circle, Sesheta, is called Tes-neb-terer.
. . . ^^ ^^37 ^^ li, and shuts in the images of Tem, Khepera,
and Shu ; Avlien Ra speaks to them they answer in a voice which
resembles the hummins; of bees. The door of the second Circle,
240
THE CIRCLES OF THE THAT
Tuat, ^, is called Tes-aha-Ta-thenen,
and shuts in the images of Tefnut, Seb, and Nut ; when Ra sjDeaks
to them they answer in a voice Avhich resembles that of weeping
women. The door of the third Circle, As-neteru, (] ^ p crz: | i ,
is called Tes-khem-baiu,
,^ , and shuts in the images
of Osiris, Isis, and Horus ; when Ra speaks to them they answer
in a voice which resembles that of men who moan. The door of
•.'•■•■r ■••■':•'.••■■•»•.•.'•: •■'•'••i :;/--v;<:";.'Al-.'::;>i--v:\.'.-./.v.-;.v'.--v.-..-.-.t'.vu-;.
The Eighth Hour of the Night.
the fourth Circle, Aakebi, (jl
em-thehen-neteru, '
i~vr-i
S J (1(1 "H^ , is called Tes-sheta-
i^T , and shuts in the images
of Ka-Amentet, \J | , Ba-neteru, ^ "J^ ^"^ , and Rem-neteru,
^ 111 ' ^^^^ ^^ speaks to them they answer in a voice which
is like that of bulls and men when they make lamentation. The
— " ■ .^L_e III
door of the fifth Circle, Nebt-semu-nefu, ^ ^^ |] j "^
THE CIRCLES OF THE TUAT 241
is called Tes-sma-kekui, ^ P ^ T '1 ^ ^ ^^ "^^^ ^^^ ^^^*^
in the images of Khatri, ^ (](j, Affi, (] ^ M <©<«, and Aranbfi,
I] fl j \I \\ ; when Ra speaks to them they answer in a voice
which is like unto that of him that maketh suppHcation in terror.
These five Circles are shut in by a door called Tes-khaibit-tuatiu,
^ TTT i ^ ^ ^^^ ^ i • ^^® ^^*^^ ^^ *^® ^^^*^ ^^^^1^ i^ ^^^®^
Tes-ermen-ta ^^ ^^^^ '^^'^ "^^ ^iid shuts in some divine beinors
' ^'5?:^ t^^^^ ,^_Z] I 33:'
whose attributes are not yet all clearly defined ; when Ea speaks
to them they answer in a voice which is like that of male cats when
they mew. The door of the seventh Circle, Hetemet-khemiu,
li'^^^^^ll ^1^' ^^ ^^^^®^ Tes - Ra - khefti - f,
o
^'^^-.O I ^
1 1 1 ^^^=- , and shuts in Nut, Ta, and Sebeq-hra,
I J A V. '^; when Ra speaks to them they answer in a voice which
is like the roar of the living. The door of the eighth Circle,
D
Hap - semu - s, "w ^^ ^ ^'^ ^^ i , is called Tes - sekhem - aru,
;^;— 1 Y ^ ^w ' -^^^>- y> - ■) ^^^ shuts in four gods ; ^ when Ra
speaks to them they answer in a voice which is like the shouts of
war heard in the battle of Nu. The door of the ninth Circle,
Sehert-baiu-s, — »— S "^ <,>% ^^, ' cz3i , is called Tes-sept-nestu,
;^^ A -^ "^ V Qq ' ' ^^^ shuts in four gods ; ^ when Ra
speaks to them they answer in a voice which is like that of the
cry of the divine hawk of Horus. The door of the tenth
Circle, Aat-setekau, '^^ \\ '^ "^^ V^ (1 ^ , is called Tes-khu,
^— '^^ ® ^ ; I jj 1 , and shuts in four gods in the form of uraei
> SJ n ^ ^Tp, Hebset ^^^^^ ^ Senket; c=^i3 J "J^ ^ :], Tebat; and
Temtet, t^ ^ ,
"' ^^^^ \ F=^, Keku; ^^^^^ § M, Menhi; ^ ' '^ i, Tcher-kliu; aud
^ -"^ -21 AAAAAA All ■< > _/ J I
, Khebs-ta.
242 THE NINTH HOUR
who rest upon 1 1 ; when Ka speaks to them they answer in a
voice which is like the twittering and chattering of water-fowl on
a lake. The last five Circles are shut in by a door called Tes-am-
mit-em-sheta-f, ;^^^||.^(]i|^,=^
The Ninth Hour, which is called Tdatet-maket-neb-s/
brings us into a country which is called the "hidden Circle of
" Amentet " ; the name of the city is Bes-aru, J — «— "^y^
n <si- v^ IN I ^ J' and the name of its pylon is Sa-Akeb,
-^*- ^ ^ ffl y^^. "When the srreat orod arriveth in this
JSr _M^ ^ lliiillll' ^
*' Circle he addresseth from his boat the gods who are therein, and
^' the sailors who are in his boat are content with this city." The
man who shall make a copy of the scenes of this Hour, and shall
know the names of the gods and their places in Amentet shall
attain to a position in Amentet, and he shall stand up in the
presence of the lord of affairs and shall enjoy the power of making
what he says to come to pass with the divine assessors, J | p "^ 3 i ,
on the day of reckoning up accounts by Per-aa (Pharaoh). The
illustrated edition of this Hour shows us the boat of the god
travelling on as before, and in front of it are twelve divine rowers,
each with his paddle ; among these are Khenu, N^ „ , Akhem-
sek-f, (] ® ^ ^, Akhem-urt-f, [j e ^|^ ^, Akhem-hemi-f,
\\ ® ^^ ^ (]() '^^=-, Akhem-khemes-f, \\ ® ^^ ® "~T "^^^^ Khen-
unnut-f, \^ ' .^-Q,^^^^-, Hapti-ta-f, A ^^^ Hetep-uaa,
--^^ XinS 1 Neter-neteru, ] | i - Tcha-Tuat, j ^ , and Tepi,
The duty of these sailors is not only to row, but also to throw water
with their paddles upon the spirits who stand on each bank of the
river whereon the god sails, and they have to lead the soul of Ra
to the place where he will reanimate the disk. Before these
sailors, resting on baskets, are the three gods who give abundant
m ^ i^ Jr U 1
244 THE NINTH HOUR
offerings, Muti-khenti-Tuat, ^ Jg^ ^^ ffdl ^ vv ^ n' ^^sti-khenti-
Tuat ^ M^^^ ^ ^ "^ , and Nebt-riu-khent-Tuat, ^^"^ tf^
l]TK ^ . On the right the boat of Ra passes twelve gods, each
seated on j 1^ , and twelve goddesses ; these last are said to breathe
after he has saluted them, and after they have heard his voice,
and their duty is to utter words of power Avherewith they are
to surround the hidden soul, and thereby to cause life and
streno-th to rise up in Osiris. The names of these are : — Nehata
-j:^ ^ ^, Teba, === J %. |, Ariti, ^ ^ (](|'^, Menkhet
'^H, Hebs, y — T, Nebti, ^, Asti-neter, jj ^ c^ ^
Asti-paut, fj^cr^®, Hetemet-khu, l^j^^"^' Neb-pat
^ I , Temtu, c^ ^ ^ , Men-a, =^ ll _., Perit, ^
^ O I
Shemat-khu, ™ ^ '^ j , Nebt-shat, ^ -— a ^ ^ ^ , Nebt-shef-
shefet, Y™™-^' Aat-aatet, ^^ ^|- () ^T ttff j ,
Nebt-setau, ^^ "^ 1^ % j , Hent-nut-s, l'^^^ ® — , Nebt-
1 Av /Wy>^rsA
mat, yU I, Tesert-ant, -n U^^.) Aat-khu, o -^^
'^ ^ ii ^ ' Sekhet-metu, ^ ^ | ^ |. Netert-en-khentet-Ra,
"i <:^ AAA^ A/^ ^ O ^ Qj2 the left are twelve uraei, each of whom
rests on I! 1 , and sends out fire through his mouth ; they are said
to kindle the fire for the god who is in the Tuat with the fire
which is in their mouths, and when the god has passed on his way
they eat up the fire which they poured forth before Ra went
by. The object of the fire was, of course, to show light on his
path. Before these uraei come the nine gods of cultivation and of
husbandry, who are under the direction of a god in mummified
form ; these nine are the sekhtiu, jl^tlfl ^ ^ i , or " field-labourers,"
of the god Her-she-tuati, ^^ lttd ^^ ^^^,^' *^^®^^' leader,
and they perform all the works connected Avith the ploughing and
watering of the fields.
246 THE TENTH HOUR
The Tenth Houe, which is called Tentit-uhesqet-khat-ab/
brings Ra in his boat to the city called Metchet-qat-utebu,
"ftx =^ = ^ ^^° II J ^ I'll'T • '"* ''" py'"'' "*^'"* ^^-
kheperu-mes-aru, ^"^ J] S '^''^ fl- ' ffl r ® s'^^^'v 1 1 ' '™™"'
The boat of the sun travels on as before, but Ra again holds a
serpent in his hand after the manner of a staff. Immediately in
front is the serpent Thes-hrau, ^^'^'^^ '^ i , with a head at each end
H— 1 I
of his body ; on one head is the white crown, and on the other
the red crown ; he has two pairs of human legs, one pair turned
towards the right, and the other pair towards the left. His
body is bent in the form of a pair of horns, and in the curve stands
Khent-Heru, ^ p==^, in the form of a black hawk ; on the left is
the goddess of the north, Neith, with her two bows, | |, and on
the rio;ht is the sroddess Hert-ermen, . Next comes a boat
containing the serpent Ankh-ta, and before it are three groups,
each containing four gods. The gods of the first group have solar
disks for heads, and are armed with arrows, and are called
Tepthera, ^ n , Shesera, — «— (1 , Temau, <^ ^ , and Utu,
v:^ cis^ v^. The gods of the second group carry each a javelin,
and are called Setu, ^ , Rau, v\ , Khesfu, — «— ^ , and
Nekenu, ^^z::::^^ Q ; and the gods of the third group carry each a
bow, and are called Pesthi, , Shemerthi, ^ w , Thesu,
^^°*^ v\ ; , and Kha-a, : | a . All these gods accompany Ra
as he goes towards the east, and they slay all his enemies who
live in the darkness, and wreak special vengeance on the serpent
Neha-hra ; they escort the god to the very limits of the Hour, and
form part of his train in the eastern part of the sky. The name
of the region traversed by Ra in this Hour is Akert, u ^ '^ '.
As the boat of Ra passes the god sees the "living beetle," ■¥•,
born in the presence of the god P-ankhi, n aaaw. M , and sees how he
IPCn^-^?l>*
w
248 THE TENTH HOUR
pushes before him his zone, . Next Ave have the two
serpents, Menenui, ^^ J. J. v::. w, standing on their tails, and
holding on their bent necks a solar disk ; and two seated personifi-
cations of the South and North ; and the two goddesses, Netheth,
s==> , and Kenat, l\ ^ , one of whom supports the hatchet,
and the other the solar disk, which rests upon it, h . From the
serpents go forth two goddesses, those of the East and West ; and
from the axe, called Seftit, "^^-^^ fjl] "^ | ' S^ forth the goddesses of
the East and West also ; i.e., these goddesses are the souls of the
serpents and of the axe, which come forth to look upon the Sun-
god, and as soon as he has passed they return into their material
bodies.
Next Ra sees eight ^ goddesses advancing to a seated dog-
headed god, who presents to them the Eye of Horus, ^^, and
their duty is to see that it is in good condition, and to take care of
it and ^^rotect it, so that it may shine daily. Besides these there
come the eight gods called Ermenui, , Neb-aqet, ^^37 ,
Tua-khu, 1 ^^ ® i, Her-she-taiu, '=^^, Sem-Heru, ^''^ v^,
Tua-Heru, ji ^^^ , Khenti-ast-f, ^B? jj '^'^^ ' ^^^ Khenti-ment,
"^^ 1 ; the duty of these gods, who lived by the breath of the
great god, was to wreck the bodies and scatter the swathings of
the enemies of Ra. On his left hand Ra passed in his journey
through this Hour Horus, and twelve beings who dive and swim
and perform evolutions in tanks of water. These are said to
beat the water in their attempts to recover their breath, and Ra
calls upon them to fill themselves with the water of the celestial
Nile, and promises that their members shall not suffer corruption,
and that their bodies shall not perish ; he decrees that they shall
1 I.e., Sekhet, V ^ , Menkert, <z^ , Huntheth, Q JL , Usit,
I (J 0^5 Abet-neteru-s, \ j i — *— ^ Aritatheth, g-^, Ahat, o § y
and Themath,
^T~~^
THE TENTH HOUR
249
be masters of their own arms in their water because they are the
denizens of Nu, and that their souls shall live. Beyond these are
four goddesses, each with a serpent hanging down her back with
its head above her own, and with them is a standard surmounted
250 THE ELEVENTH HOUR
by the head of Set, If. This god was the guardian of the Tenth
Hour, and when Ra was about to pass from it into the eastern part
of the sky, Set was believed to rouse himself and to make the
journey with him. The four goddesses " who lived by their
heads," shed light on the path of Ra.
The Eleventh Hour, which is called Sebuit-nebt-uaa-
KHESFET-SEBAU-EM-PERT-F,^ brings US to a city called Re-qerert-apt-
khat, , <=> n il ^fc\ O ^, with a pylon bearino^ the
/VW^/V'^
name of Sekhen-tuatiu, ^ 'k '^ cr:zi J\ i niiiinr; the object of
the texts and the illustrations which accompany it was to enable
the spirits of the dead to become participators with the gods, and
to provide them witli such things as were necessary for their
equipment both in heaven and upon earth. Ra stands as usual in
his boat, but he has changed the serpent which he held in his hand
as a sceptre for the ordinary sceptre, 1 , and on the bows of the
boat we see a solar disk, surrounded by a serpent ; the name of this
disk is ,, , I or — *- -^g^^ , Pestu or Pestet, and it is probably
connected with some well-known star Avhicli rose heliacally at
certain seasons of the year. The duty of the disk was to guide
the boat of the great god along the paths which led to that part
of the Tuat, at the end of the Eleventh Hour, where the darkness
faded away ; the texts call the darkness at this point keku keskesu,
V *~^ ' ' ^•®'' ^^^® opposite of the l-ehii samui^
\\ "TT^ Y ^ ^ I . or the thick, solid darkness which
filled the greater part of the Tuat. Before the boat of Ra are
twelve gods, who carry upon their heads the serpent Mehen to the
eastern part of the sky ; their names are : — Fa, %\ , Ermenu,
0, Athpi, <^ ^ [j[],Netru, ^^,Shepu, :^ D
[zrzD I I I -ji^^
252 THE ELEVENTH HOUR
I II 1 ^ H /■■AA^JV'. —M ^ C>CZ>C
Sekhenu, ^ ^ , Semsem, ^^ ^^ , and Mehni,
Before these are : — 1. A uraeus wearing the crown of the North
and a human head ; and, 2. A uraeus from the back of which
emero^es the white crown, with a human head on each side of it.
The first of these is called Sem-shet, '^ , and the second
Sem-Nebt-het, "^]T; the human heads on the white crown only-
come forth when Ra is passing by, and when he has departed they
disappear. Next we have figures of the four forms of the goddess
Neith, two of them wearing the white crown, and two the red ;
they are called Neith the fecundator, ^ , in allusion to the belief
that this goddess begat herself, Neith of the red crown, ^ >/,
Neith of the white crown, r), and Neith the child, ;
these goddesses came into being as soon as they heard the voice of
Ra, and their duty was to guard the gate of Sai's, "^^ fl (] ^ ? *^®
unknown, the unseen, the invisible, ^ ^ '^i-^- O O — fu. <=>
This Circle of the Tuat through which the god travels to appear in
the mountain of the sunrise contains many wonderful beings, and
it is said to '' swallow always the forms therein in the presence of
" the god who knoweth, ^ Jj, who is in this city, and afterwards
" it giveth them for the births of those who are to come into being
"on this earth." Among these are: — A god with the solar disk
for a head ; from it project two human heads, one wearing >/, and
the other Q. He is called Aper-hra-neb-tchetta, d "^ ^1 , and
stands facing a god having two heads, but without crowns, whose
name is Tepui, @@. In the space between we see a serpent
provided with a pair of wings and four human legs and feet, facing
the serpent Shetu, ^, upon the back of which is seated a
god ; the heads of both serpents are among a number of stars.
Standing by the side of the winged serpent, which is called
Tchet-s, oTTl , is a god called Petra, "^ [1 ^^^^ , with his arms
stretched out in such a way as to keep the wings wide apart ; he
has on his head a disk, and his neck is between the double iitchat,
m
254 THE ELEVENTH HOUR
^?^S' ^^^ descriptive text says that the god with a disk and
two heads is "he who stands, of p^ , by Ra," ^ and that he
never leaves his place in the Tuat. The god who stands by the
Avinged serpent is Temu, who springs out of the reptile's back
when Rii addresses it; but as soon as the words cease Temu
disappears into the serpent. The second serpent is the con-
stellation Shetu, i.e., the Tortoise, and its soul appears in human
form on its back as soon as Ra addresses it, but when the words
have ceased like Temu it disappears into its body. The duty of
Shetu was to ^' emit life for Ra every day."
Before these march Khnemu and ten gods, five of whom have
no arms ; from the neck of one of these project the heads of two
serpents.^ From the descriptive text we learn that the souls of
these gods lived on the hidden light of Ra ; that the breath of his
mouth gave them life, and that their souls fed upon the provisions
which were stored in his boat ; their chief duty was to be with and
in attendance upon the god. Besides these gods we also have in
this Hour four goddesses, each of whom sits upon the bodies of
two uraei, which are bent upwards in such a way as to form a
seat ; the heads of each pair of uraei are reared up in front of the
knees of the goddess, who is sitting on their backs, and whose feet
rest upon their necks. Each goddess has her right hand raised as
if to hide her face, and with her left she grasps the body of one
of the uraei. It is possible that the uraei are only four in number,
and that they are two-headed ; the goddesses are called Nebt-
ankhiu, ^ ■¥• ' • Nebt-khu, ^ ^ i , Nert, <^ W^ ^^^
Hent (?)-neteru, AA^~v^ | . The descriptive text says that the
arms of these beings are on earth, and their feet in the thick
^ M. Maspero speaks of him as the " agathodemon " of Ra.
- The names are: — Khnem-renit, R i^l^ '^? Nerta, <^^ , Aaiu-f-em-
A/wysA
kha-nef , a , Apt-taui, %J """ , Mer-en-aaui-f, o , Aunaauif,
(1 %^ g ^^^— , Rest-f, 3^ ^ '^j Tua-Heru, -^ ^ , Maa, -^ , Meskhti,
and Hepa, fi
THE PITS OF THE TUAT 255
darkness, and as long as tlie god is speaking to them they utter
cries and acclaim him ; they never move from their places, and
their souls live upon the voices of the uraei which go forth from
their feet daily. When the shadows depart the winds which arise
in the Tuat are diverted from the faces of the four goddesses by
their hands, Avhicli they hold up. In this statement we seem to
have an allusion to the keen, fresh wind of dawn with which all
travellers in the desert are well acquainted, and which usually
blows about one hour before sunrise.
In the region on the left hand side of Ra we see how
punishment is inflicted upon the enemies of Ra, and in it we have
a country of blazing fire. At one end stands Horus with a disk,
surrounded by a uraeus, upon his head, holding in his left hand a
boomerang, one end of which terminates in the head of a serpent ;
the idea here suggested is that the weapon held by the god is a
real serpent, which when thrown at an enemy will suddenly attach
itself to his body after the manner of the vicious uraeus. The
right arm of Horus rests on a staff wherewith the god usually
supports himself, and before him rears itself a huge serpent called
^' Set of millions of years," ^ , the duty of which was to
devour any of the enemies of Ra, i.e., the dead, who succeeded
in making their escape from the fires of the country of the
Eleventh Hour. In front of these were the five awful chambers,
or pits in the sky, which were filled with the red-hot materials of
blazing fires, and employed to consume the enemies of Ra.
The first chamber or pit, Hatet, "w e^:^, was fiUed Avith the
bodies of fiends who were dashing out their own brains with axes,
^^^^ k"' ^^^ ^^^ under the charge of a lion-headed goddess,
called Hert-Ketit-s, ^^ H^^r' ^^^ stood by its side and
belched fire into it through her mouth ; when the fire had done its
work on the wretched creatures they were hacked to pieces by the
hu2:e knife which she held in both her hands. The second
chamber or pit was also filled with the bodies of fiends, and was
under the charge of a woman called Hert-Hantua, uP ^^^ i (j,
who spat fire upon them and who was armed with a monster knife.
256 THE ELEVENTH HOUR
The third chamber or pit was filled with the souls, ^^^^'^'
of the fiends, and was under the charge of a woman called Hert-
Nekenit, ^^:=:^ (1(1 "^>- ^, who spat fire upon them and who was
similarly armed. The fourth and fifth chambers, which were under
the charge of similar women, called H ert-Nemmat-set, ^ [^ m '
and Hert-sefu-s, ^^^^ [1, contained the shadows, TT T ,
and heads, @®@, of the damned. Passing by these chambers we
come to the " Valley of those who are cast down headlong,"
u ^ ^ ^=^^ Y> 1 1 which is represented by a large hollow wherein
four men are standing on their heads, 'ii'i'i; next to this are
four goddesses of the desert, each of whom has upon her head
the emblem of desert; their names are Pesi, (1(1, Rekhit,
Her-sha-s, f=^ a—*-, and Sait, ^00^. Each
I I I
name has a meaning something like " fiery," and refers to the
goddesses in their character of mistresses of the blazing desert.
Finally, behind these comes the god Her-ut-f, p=q J^ , who
was in some way connected with the embalming of the dead. The
descriptive text which accompanies these scenes makes the great
god Ra command " his father Osiris to hack in pieces the bodies of
" the enemies and of the dead who are cast down headlong."
Then, addressing the enemies themselves, he tells them that
when his father Osiris hath smitten them for destruction, and hath
cut in pieces their spirits and souls, and hath rent asunder their
shadows, and hath cut off their heads in such a way that existence
in the future will be impossible for them, they will be cast down
headlong into burning furnaces from which there is neither escape
nor deliverance, and Set the everlasting snake will drive his flames
against them, and the Lady of furnaces, and the Lady of fiery pits,
and the Lady of slaughtering blocks, and the Lady of swords, will
drive against them the flames which come forth from their mouths,
that they will hack them in pieces in such wise that the wretched
beings will never again see those who live upon the earth. The
slaughter of the enemies is ordered to be performed by Horus, the
god of those who are in the Tuat, and it is curious to note that the
THE TWELFTH HOUR 257
gods his companions are said to live upon the voices of the enemies
who are slain, and on the shrieks and cries of the souls and
shadows which are cast down into the blazing, fiery pits.
The Twelfth Hour, Maa-nefert-Ra,^ brings the god Ra into
the Circle which is on the confines of thick darkness, and to a city
called Khepert-kekui-khaat-mest, v^ i ^ i (f| "^ ,
^ ' <^=> c^=f=, ^:z:^ Jl I ac==f= I 111 111'
with its pylon called Then-neteru, i\\ . In this region the
god is born under the form of Khepera, ^^^^ ffl <=> \>]\ ^ ^^^^
^ <==> y, and Nu, ^ |, and Nut, O ^ - ^, Hehu, ||^^,
and Hehut, O y '^ rlj ? come into the Circle when he is born,
and when he goeth forth from the Tuat and resteth in the Mantit,
^^^ A.WVVA Mo ^n^, boat, and when he riseth on the body ^ of Nut.
Ra journeys in his boat, as before, but the solar disk which was at
the bows in the Eleventh Hour is no longer there, and its place is
occupied by the beetle of Khepera, the forerunner of the rising
sun.^ Twelve gods tow the boat, not over a river or over the
back of a serpent or serpents, but completely through a serpent ; in
front the tow-rope is held by the hands of twelve women. This
serpent is called Ka-en-Ankh-neteru, IwLi ■¥• T , i.e., " the life
of the gods," and the gods who draw Af, that is to say, Ra,
through it are his " loyal servants," -^, I , Amhhiu. The boat
enters the serpent at his tail in deep darkness, and passing
through his body emerges through the mouth into the light of
day ; the god in his boat enters the snake in the form of a dead,
old Sun-god, and he comes forth not only alive, but made young
again, and appears in the sky under the form of Khepera. The
" loyal servants " of Ra are the souls of the blessed which have
been so fortunate as to obtain admission into his boat ;„ they were
his devout adorers when upon earth, and the reward which they
-> '^ t^ o>^
i 0*
I
2 IJ fi >> : ^ word sometimes rendered by vulva, pubis, andflanJi
^ See Lanzone, Domicile des Esprits, pi. v.
258 THE TWELFTH HOUR
obtain for their fidelity is renewed youth and a new birth upon
the earth. What they are to do upon earth is not made clear, but
it is evident that they cannot remain there for an indefinite
period, for since their master needs to be re-born daily they also
must need re-birth each day. It is doubtful, if we judge by some
passages, if they came to the earth at all, and it is far more likely
that their enjoyment consisted in journeying about at will through
the sky and looking down from some portion of it upon the scenes
of their old life than in making hurried visits to the earth daily.
When the boat of Ra has passed through the serpent the
twelve women or goddesses, mentioned above, take the rope from
the gods and haul it on to the paths of the sky. The god is
accompanied through the Twelfth Hour by: — 1. Twelve goddesses,
each bearing a serpent on her head and shoulders, and 2. Twelve
gods, or men, with their hands raised in adoration ; all these are
on the right hand side. Each deity has a name, which is Avritten
in front of his or her figure. The uraei of the goddesses are said
to proceed from them, and the flames which drive away Apep
come forth from their mouths. The goddesses travel with the
god until he rises on this earth, but after this they return to their
places. The duty of the twelve gods is to praise Ra. On the left
of the boat we have the gods Nu, 000, Nuth, , Hehu,
II v^, Hehut, II y^j these gods are "in their o^vn bodies,"
\^^^ ^ AA,wvx ^1 , and they go to Ra in heaven, to receive
this great god as he cometh forth to them in the eastern part of
heaven daily. They live in their drrit, i.e., hall of the horizon,
but their forms, ^^ vj\ ) ""^^^ , of the Tuat belong to this Circle.
Next we have two human-headed gods, a bird-headed god called
Nehui, ppi ^ IJiJ, a god with two birds heads called Ni, (j [j ,
the serpent Nesmekhef, "^ ^^ ® 'Wi^ and four human-headed
gods ; all these carry paddles on their right shoulders. The
duty of the gods is to raise up, £=» "I , the disk of the sun daily,
but the serjDent Nesmekhef slaughters the enemies of Ra ; they
travel with Ra and receive their spirits, '^^ © s=5 ^^-^^^^ in this
OSIRIS, GOVERNOR OF AMENTl 259
Circle. Before these are ten gods, with hands raised in adoration/
Avho are described as the kentiu, ^ ^ ^ g i , of the forms of
Osiris, the Governor of the thick darkness, ^^^~~"^ w v\ ^^^
Tw^"!^, and they say to him, "Live, thou Governor of thy
" darkness ! Live, 0 thou who art great in all things ! Live, 0
" thou Prince of Amentet, Osiris, thou Governor of those who are
" in Amenti ! Mayest thou live, mayest thou live, 0 thou who
" art Governor of the Tuat, the wind of Ra is to thy nostrils,
" the breath of Khepera is with thee, thou livest and they live.
" Hail, Osiris, lord of the living ones ; the gods who are with
" Osiris are those who were with him at the first time," etc.
The allusion here is to the death and burial of Osiris, when
Horus carried out the arrangements which had to be made for the
performance of the general ceremonies, and when every detail
connected with mummification, etc., was thought out by the loving
care of the son of Osiris. In the illustrated version of the Twelfth
Hour, published by Signor Lanzone (tav. vii.), we have represented
the semi-circular wall of thick darkness which forms the end of the
Tuat and the division between it and this world. Against this
wall, in the lower part of it, lies a mummied form, representing
Osiris, and called Sem-Af, ^^ Q^, i.e., the "Image (or Form) of
" Af " ; this is the object of the praises which the last two groups
of gods lavish upon him. The descriptive text says concerning the
mummy, " He who is in this picture in the hidden form of Horus of
" thick darkness is the secret image which Shu makes to be under
" Nut, and which cometh forth from Keb-ur on earth in this form."^
' Tuati, J^ CTzn , Tes-kliu, "'^:^ ''^^ , Themaru, / , Aakhbu,
U ^ J V' Sekhenu, ^ ^ , Ermenii, „ , Klienmi, ^ ^ , Bunau,
^_fl, Aura, £;n ^ , Atliep, (J ^ , and Am , -[J-.
260 THE SUN S NEW BIRTH
In the middle of the wall of thick darkness is a red disk, from
which proceeds a human head ; this is the " image of Shu,"
"^>^ R , who extends his arms along the vaulted wall, and of
whose body one part is in the Tuat and the other in this world.
Immediately above the head of the god is the beetle of Khepera,
here spelt ® Q, which makes its way into this world through the
opening which the head and shoulders of Shu have made in the
wall of thick darkness. Through this opening the boat of Ra also
was enabled to pass into this world, and the god continued his
journey with the help of the deities who towed him along ; there
is no doubt about this because the tow-line is prolonged to the
wall of thick darkness. As Af, the dead body of Ra, passes into
our world, his new life begins, and for men and women the night
passes away, and a new day is born.
We have now traced the passage of the Sun-god through the
Tuat as it was imagined by those who believed in the absolute
supremacy of Osiris, and as it was described by the author of the
Book of Pylons, and we have briefly passed through its divisions
ag described in the Book of that which is in the Tuat,
throughout which the absolute supremacy of Ra is maintained. It
is now easy to see that these two works represent two opposite
and conflicting theories as to the future life. The heaven of the
devotees of Osiris was originally most materialistic, and the life
which was led in it by the beatified was, to all intents and
purposes, merely a continuation of the life led by men and women
upon earth ; the heaven of the priests of Ra was of a more refined
character, and it lacked the grosser characteristics of the dwellers
in the Elysian Fields of Osiris. Some have argued from the facts
about the Tuat given above that the Egyptians beheved in the
existence of purgatory, and in the everlasting punishment of the
wicked in a hell of fire, and in the reincarnation of souls, and in
many other things which would presuppose the holding by them
of doctrines which are commonly thought to be the products of
the minds of modern nations ; but the facts do not support these
beliefs. Whichever doctrine of the future life we take, whether
that of Osiris or that of Ra, we find no room in it for a purgatory.
DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED 261
In the Judgment which took place before Osiris only the righteous
were permitted to enter into the Elysian Fields, and the wicked
were destroyed immediately ; in other words, annihilation was the
punishment for sin. The Egyptians believed largely in the
efficacy of works, and in addition to the deeds of love and charity
which they performed in all periods, strict care concerning the
ceremonies of religion, worship, and of the funeral, and a proper
respect and reverence for words of power, and amulets, and sacred
writings, and figures were demanded from them by priests and
religious teachers at all times. There was, of course, a large class
of people who could not afford costly burials, and who were too
poor to buy even cheap amulets, but they Avere not condemned in
the Judgment because of their poverty ; on the contrary, they
escaped annihilation and were admitted by Osiris into the first
division of the Tuat, where, however, they were compelled to stay
because they did not know the words of power which would enable
them to continue their journey through the remaining divisions of
the Underworld. But there was no punishment inflicted upon
them because they had been both poor and ignorant in this world ;
they merely remained in the place to which their religious qualifi-
cations enabled them to attain, and each evening, or each night,
they were made glad by the sight of the great god Ra as he sailed
through the Tuat in his boat, and they rejoiced in his daily visit.
The beings in the Tuat of Osiris upon whom punishment was
inflicted were the " enemies of Osiris," and these were usually the
" enemies of Ra " ; but in no text is it said that the punishment
which they had to endure there ever obliterated their guilt,
whatever it might be, or that when the proper time had arrived
they would be allowed to proceed into another division of the Tuat
where their punishment would be lighter, or where they would
undergo none at all. Though a man could earn happiness in the
realm of Osiris or in that of Ra by his good works on earth, and
by ceremonies performed at his funeral by duly qualified priests,
and by the presence of copies of religious texts which were buried
with him, there is no reason to think that when once his soul
reached the Underworld it could ever better its position there
either by suffering punishment or by the performance of good
262 OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD
works. The offerings made at the tombs of the dead were for the
benefit of the ha or double, and perhaps for the animal soul which
was at one time believed to exist in the human body, but neither
the offerings nor the prayers which accompanied them seem to
have been able to remove the spirits and souls of the dead from one
division of the Tuat into another, or to modify the state or
condition which had been decreed for them. Similarly, there is no
evidence that prayers for the dead or offerings would ameliorate
the condition of those who had successfully passed the ordeal of
the Judgment, and had been sent by Osiris into one or other of the
habitations of his kingdom.
( 263 )
CHAPTER VI
HELL AND THE DAMNED
F we examine the doctrine concerning the future life according
I to the priesthoods of Ra we find still less room for a purga-
tory in their theological system. According to this the souls of
the dead assembled in Amentet, i.e., the "hidden" region, the
Egyptian Hades, where they waited for the boat of Ra to pass by.
When the god appeared those who had been his worshippers and
adorers on earth, and who were fortunate enough to have secured
the words of power which would enable them to enter the boat did
so, and they made their journey with him through the Tuat.
Under his protection they passed through all the dangers which
threatened to destroy them, and continued their journey through
the realms of Osiris and Seker, and at length appeared with Ra in
the eastern horizon of heaven at daybreak. Once there they were
able to wander about heaven at will, and they did so, presumably,
until the time of sunset, when they rejoined the god in his boat,
and again made the journey through the Tuat with him. Each
division of the Tuat, apparently, contained a host of beings who
wished to enter the boat of Ra, but could not do so, either for
want of the necessary words of power, or because they had reached
the place to which their qualifications entitled them ; these all,
however, received great benefit from the nightly visit of Ra, and
as he left each division to enter the next they were filled with
great sorrow, and many of them ceased to exist until the following
night, when they renewed their life for a brief period. Many
divisions of the Tuat contained enemies of Ra, who were, of course,
destroyed without mercy by the followers of the god ; but there is
no reason whatsoever for the view that these enemies were the
264 HELL AND THE DAMNED
damned, or that they were doomed to eternal punishment. At the
end of the Tuat was a region where certain goddesses presided over
pits of fire and superintended the destruction of the bodies, and
spirits, and shadows, and heads of numbers of such enemies, and
it would seem, judging by the knives in their hands, that they
hacked the bodies to pieces before they were burnt. But even
these were not punished eternally, for as soon as the god had
passed through their region the fires went out, and the mere fact
that he was able to appear in the eastern sky proved that all his
enemies were destroyed. Each night and morning Ra destroyed
the hosts of enemies who attempted to bar his progress, for such
enemies perished instantly by the flames which went forth from
the divine beings whom he had created.
Originally, too, such enemies were only the personifications of
the powers of nature, such as twilight, darkness, night, gloom, the
blackness of eclipses, fog, mist, vapour, rain, cloud, storm, wind,
tempest, hurricane, and the like, which were destroyed daily by
Ra and his fiery beams. Many, in fact the greater number of such
personifications, were endowed by Egyptian artists with human
forms, and the pictures of the scenes of their destruction by fire
were supposed by many to represent the burning of the souls of
the damned. The ignorant and the superstitious did not under-
stand that the Sun-god slew and burned with fire the enemies of
each night and morning during that same night and morning;
each rising of the sun was the result of the annihilation of his
foes of that day. It may be urged that these foes were always
the same because they were always of the same kind, but the
Egyptians did not think so, and they believed that a new host of
foes appeared to attack Ra each night and morning. But even
had they thought so, the punishment was only intermittent,
and it was only renewed during that part of each night which
immediately preceded the dawn, and during the interval between
dawn and sunrise. The souls of the damned could have done
nothing to hinder the progress of Ra, and the Egyptians never
imagined that they did, but it is possible that in late dynastic
times certain schools of theological thought in Egypt, being
dissatisfied Avith and unconvinced of the accuracy of the theory of
HELL AND THE DAMNED 265
the annihilation of the wicked, assigned to evil souls dwelling-
places with the personifications of the powers of nature already-
mentioned in the Tuat. The spears which pierced the enemies of
Ra were the fiery rays of the sun, and the knives which hacked
their bodies in pieces were his flames of fire ; and the lakes and
pits of fire were suggested to the minds of the primitive Egyptians
by the fiery splendour which filled the eastern heavens at sunrise.
They certainly did not believe in everlasting punishment, and
there is nothing in the texts which will support the view that they
did ; in fact, the doctrines of purgatory and hell which were
promulgated during the Middle Ages in Europe with such success
find no equivalents in the ancient Egyptian religion. Apart from
the general characteristics of their religion the Egyptians were
too practical to entertain the idea of repeated destructions or
consumings by fire of the same body, but had they done so we
should certainly have found some texts which had been composed
to avert such an awful doom. They mummified the bodies of
their dead in the earliest times because they expected them to rise
again, and they did so in later times because they believed that
a spiritual body would grow out of them ; they never expected
to obtain a second physical body in the Underworld, and therefore
they took the greatest care to preserve, by means of magical
ceremonies and words, the bodies in which they lived in as
complete a form as possible. The destruction of the body involved
the ruin of the ha, or double, and of the shadow, and of many of
the mental and spiritual constituents of man ; and the Egyptians
regarded the death of the body with such dismay that, fearing lest
the spiritual body which sprang from it after death might be in
danger of dying, they caused prayers to be composed for the
purpose of averting from it the " second death " and the possibility
of its dying a second time.
We may see, however, that although the Egyptians had no
hell for souls in the mediaeval acceptance of the term, their fiery
pits, and fiends, and devils, and enemies of Ra formed the
foundations of the hells of later peoples like the Hebrews, and
even of the descendants of the Egyptians who became Christians
i.e., the Copts. Many proofs of this fact may be found in Coptic
266 OUTER DARKNESS
literature as the following instances will show. In " Pistis
Sophia," ^ we have the Virgin Mary asking Jesus, her Lord, to give
her a description of " outer darkness," ^ and to tell her how many-
places of punishment there are in it. Our Lord replies, " The
" outer darkness is a great serpent, the tail of which is in its
" mouth, and it is outside the whole world, and surroundeth the
" whole world ; in it there are many places of punishment, and it
" containeth twelve halls wherein severe punishment is inflicted.
" In each hall is a governor, but the face of each governor difFereth
" from that of his neighbour. The governor of the first hall hath
" the face of a crocodile, with its tail in its mouth. From the
" mouth of the serpent proceed all ice, and all dust, and all cold,
*' and every kind of disease and sickness ; and the true name by
" which they call him in his place is Enkhthonin. And the
" governor of the second hall hath as his true face the face of a cat,
" and they call him in his place Kharakhae. And the governor
" of the third hall hath as his true face the face of a dog, and
" they call him in his place Arkharokh. And the governor of the
" fourth hall hath as his true face the face of a serpent, and they
" call him in his place Akhrokhar. And the governor of the fifth
" hall hath as his true face the face of a black ox,^ and they call
" him in his place Markhour. And the governor of the sixth hall
" hath as his true face the face of a goat, and they call him in his
" place Lamkhamor. And the governor of the seventh hall hath
" as his true face the face of a bear, and they call him as his true
" name Lonkhar. And the governor of the eighth hall hath as
" his true face the face of a vulture, and they call him in his place
" Laraokh. And the governor of the ninth hall hath as his true
" face the face of a basilisk, and they call him in his place
" Arkheokh. And in the tenth hall there are many governors,
" and there is there a serpent with seven heads, each head having
" its [own] true face, and he who is over them all in his place they
" call Xarmarokh. And in the eleventh hall there are many
^ See Pistis Sophia. Opus Gnosticum Valentino atljucli cation, ed. Schwartze,
Berlin, 1851.
3 OYg,0 SJ.3J.A.C£ H K^^JLIG.
THE HELL OF THE GNOSTICS 267
*' governors, and there are there seven heads, each of them having
" as its true face the face of a cat, and the greatest of them, who is
" over them, they call in his place Rhokhar. And in the twelfth
" hall there are many great governors, and there are there seven
" heads, each of them having as its true face the face of a dog, and
" the greatest, who is over them, they call in his place Khremaor.
" These twelve governors are in the serpent of outer darkness, and
" each of them hath a name according to the hour, and each of
" them changeth his face according to the hour." ^
It is quite clear that in the above extract from the famous
Gnostic work we have a series of chambers in the outer darkness
which has been borrowed from the twelve divisions of the Egyptian
Tuat already described, and the reader has only to compare the
vignettes to Chapters cxliv. and cxlv. of the Booh of the Dead with
the extract from " Pistis Sophia" to see how close the borrowing
has been. An examination of another great Gnostic work,
generally known as the "Book of leu,"^ proves that the Under-
world of the Gnostics was nothing but a modified form of the
Amentet or Amenti of the Egyptians, to which were added
characteristics derived from the religious systems of the Hebrews
and Greeks. The Gnostic rivers and seas of fire are nothing but
equivalents of those mentioned in the Booh of the Bead, and the
beings in Amenti, and Chaos, and Outer Darkness are derived, in
respect of form, from ancient Egyptian models. The great dragon
of Outer Darkness and his twelve halls, and their twelve guardians
or governors who change their names and forms every hour are,
after all, only modifications of the old Egyptian system of the
Twelve Pylons or Twelve Hours which formed the Underworld-
The seven-headed serpent of the Gnostic system has his prototype
in the great serpent Nau, v\ Um^, which is called the " bull of
"the gods," and has "seven serpents on his seven necks,"
[
^ nil
R X\ JpK ^ ^^y^/ f the seven-headed serpent, I^au-shesma,
^ Pistis Sophia, Coptic text, p. 319 ff.
^ See Schmidt, Gnostische Scliriften in Koiitisclier SpracJie, Leipzig, 1892.
3 Teta, 1. 307.
268 AMENTET AND THE TUAT
v\ IM. '"^^^ P 8 ^ 7 ^Iso had seven uraei for heads, and he
had authority over seven archers, or seven bows, | ^ 1
Of Amentet and the Tuat in general we find many traces in
the martyrdoms of Coptic saints, but, as was to be expected, the
writers have made the demons and the pits of fire of the Egyptian
Underworld instruments of punishment for the souls of those who
did not embrace Christianity when upon this earth. Thus the
writer of the Martyrdom of George ^ of Cappadocia makes the saint
to raise up from the dead a pagan called Boes, who had been dead
two hundred years, and who told Dadianus, the governor, that he
had been on earth a worshipper of the " stupid, dumb, deaf, and
" blind Apollo," and that when he departed this life he went to
live in " a place in the river of fire until such time as I went to
" the place where the worm dieth not." According to another
writer, Macarius of Antioch restored to life a man who had been
dead for six hours, and who stated that his miseries during that
short time had been greater than those which he had endured
throughout all his life upon earth. He confessed that he had been
a worshipper of idols, and then went on to say that when he was
dying the fiends crowded upon him, and that these had the faces
of serpents, lions, crocodiles, and, curiously enough, of bears.
They tore his soul from his body with great violence, and fled
with it to a great river of fire wherein they plunged it to a depth
of four hundred cubits ; then they drew it out and set it before
the Judge of Truth,^ who passed sentence upon it. After this was
done they took it to a " place of darkness, wherein there was no
" light whatsoever, and they cast it down into the cold where
" there was gnashing of teeth. Here," said the wretched man, " I
" saw the worm which never slumbereth, and his head was like
" unto that of a crocodile. He was surrounded by serpents of
" every kind which cast souls before him, and wlien his own mouth
' Teta, 1. 306.
• See my St. George of Cappadocia, p. 20.
' niKpiTHC JUIJUIHI. The word JUIHI is the old Egyptian ^^, mad,
which is commonly rendei'ed by " law, right, ti'uth, true, just," and the like.
RA AND APEP 269
" was full he allowed the other creatures to eat ; in that place
" they tore us to pieces, but we could not die. After that they
" took me out of the place and carried me into Amenti, where I
" was to stay for ever." ^ In another work ^ a nameless mummy is
made to tell how before he died the avenging angels came about
him with iron knives and pointed goads, which they thrust into
his sides, and how other angels came and tore his soul from his
body, and having tied it to the similitude of a black horse they
carried it off to Amentet. Here he was tortured in a place filled
with noxious reptiles, and having been cast into the outer darkness
he saw a pit more than two hundred feet deep, which was filled
with reptiles, each of which had seven heads, and had its body
covered with objects like scorpions. In this place were several
other terrible serpents, and to one of these, which had teeth like
iron stakes, the poor soul was given to be devoured ; this monster
crushed the soul for five days of each week, but on Saturday and
Sunday it had respite. This last sentence seems to suggest that
the serpent respected the Sabbath of the Jews and the Sunday of
the Christians.
In all these examples, and even in the words of Isaiah,
who says (Ixvi. 24), '' their worm shall not die, neither shall
" their fire be quenched," we have a direct allusion to the great
serpent of the Egyptian Underworld, which was, in all periods
of history, the terror of the worshippers of the Sun-god, and
which was known by many names. The allies and companions
of this serpent were serpents like itself, and to nearly every
power which was hostile to the dead or the living the form of
a snake or serpent was attributed. The type and symbol of all
enmity to Ra, whether of a physical or moral character, was the
arch-serpent Apep or Apepi, which attacked him daily, and was
overcome daily. To this monster we have several allusions in the
Boole of the Bead, but these do not adequately convey an idea of
the terror with which he was regarded, at all events in the latter
part of the dynastic period.
^ Hyvemat, Les Actes des Martyrs de I'jSgypte, p. 56 f.
^ Amelineau, Monuments pour servir a VHistoire de VEgypte Chretienne, p. 167.
270 RA AND APEP
From a papyrus preserved in the British Museum ^ we learn
that a special service was in use in Upper Egypt for the purpose
of destroying the power of Apepi and of making his attacks on the
sun to have no effect. This service consisted of a series of chapters
which were to be recited at certain times of the day during the
performance of a number of curious ceremonies of a magical
character. Thus one rubric orders that the name of Apepi shall
be written in green colour upon a piece of new papyrus, and
that a wax fiorure of the fiend shall be made and his name inlaid
upon it with green colour. Both papyrus and wax figure were to
be burnt in the fire, the belief being that as the wax figure melted
and as the sheet of papyrus burnt, the fiend Apepi would also
decay and fall to pieces. Whilst the wax figure was melting in
the fire it was to be spit upon several times each hour, and when it
was melted the refuse of it was to be mixed with dung and again
burnt. It was imperative to do this at midnight, when Ra began
his return journey in the Tuat, towards the east, and at dawn, and
at noon, and at eventide, and in fact at any and every hour of the
day. This might also be done with advantage whenever storm
clouds appeared in the sky, or whenever the clouds gathered
together for rain. The following extract will give an idea of the
general import of the service for the destruction of Apepi. The
deceased says : " Apepi hath fallen into the flame, a knife is stuck
' into his head, his name no longer existeth upon this earth. It is
' decreed for me to inflict blows upon him, I drive darts into his
' bones, I destroy his soul in the course of every day, I sever his
' vertebrae from his neck, cutting into his flesh with a knife and
' stabbing through his skin. He is given over to the fire which
' obtains the mastery over him in its name of ' Sekhet,' and it
' hath power over him in its name of ' Eye burning the enemy.'
' Darts are driven into his soul, his bones are burnt with fire, and
' his limbs are placed therein. Horus, mighty of strength, hath
' decreed that he shall come in front of the boat of Ra ; his fetter
' of steel tieth him up and maketh his limbs so that they cannot
' move ; Horus repulseth his moment of luck during his eclipse,
' and he maketh him to vomit that which is inside him. Horus
^ See Archaeologia, vol. lii.
RA AND APEP 271
" fettereth, bindeth, and tieth up, and Aker taketh away his
" strength so that I may separate his flesh from his bones ; that I
" may fetter his feet and cut off his two hands and arms ; that I
" may shut up his mouth and lips, and break in his teeth ; that I
" may cut out his tongue from his throat, and carry away his
" words ; that I may block up his two eyes, and carry off his ears ;
" that I may tear out his heart from its seat and throne ; and that
" I may make him so that he existeth not. May his name never
" exist, and may what is born to him never live ; may he never
" exist, and may his kinsfolk never exist ; may he never exist, and
" may his relatives never exist ; may he never exist, and may his
" heir never exist ; may his offspring never grow to maturity ;
" may his seed never be established ; moreover, may his soul, and
" body, and spirit, and shade, and words of power, and his bones,
" and his skin, never more exist."
The Rubric runs : " This Chapter is to be said over a figure
" of Apepi, inscribed upon new papyrus with green ink, and
" placed inside a covering on which his name hath been written,
" and thou shalt tie these round tightly with cord, and put such a
" figure and covering into the fire every day. Thou shalt stamp
" upon it and defile it with thy left foot, and thou shalt spit upon
" it four times during the course of every day, and when thou
" hast placed it upon the fire thou shalt say, ' Ra triumpheth over
'' ' thee, Apepi, and Horus triumpheth over his enemies, and P-aa
" ' (i.e., the deceased) triumpheth over his enemies.' Next thou
" shalt write down the names of all the male and female devils of
" which thy heart is afraid, the names of all the enemies of P-aa,
" in death, and in life, and the names of their father, mother, and
" children, [and place the papyrus] inside the covering, together
" with a wax figure of Apepi. These shall then be placed in the
" fire in the name of Apepi, and shall be burnt when Ra riseth in
" the morning ; this thou shalt repeat at noon and at evening
" when Ra setteth in the land of life, whilst there is light at the
" foot of the mountain. Over each figure of Apepi thou shalt recite
" the above chapter, in very truth, for the doing of this shall be
" of great benefit [for thee] upon earth and in the Underworld." ^
^ On the Hieratic Papyrus of Nesi-Arnsu, p. 52 (Arcliaeologia, vol. Hi.).
272 SERPENTS AND SNAKES
To destroy the fiends which were associated with Apepi it
was necessary to make figures of them in wax, and having
inscribed their names upon them to tie them round with black
hair, and then to cast them on the ground, and kick them with the
left foot, and pierce them with a stone spear. To obtain the full
benefit of all the names of Apepi a man had to make the figure of
a serpent with his tail in his mouth, and having stuck a knife in
its back, and cast it down upon the ground, to say, " Apep, Fiend,
"Betet." The faithful follower of Ra is also bidden to "make
" another serpent with the face of a cat, and with a knife stuck in
" his back, and call it Hemhem. Make another with the face of
" a crocodile, and with a knife stuck in his back, and call it
" Hauna-aru-her-hea ; make another with the face of a duck,
" and with a knife stuck in his back, and call it Aluti. Make
" another with the face of a white cat, and with a knife stuck in
" his back, and tie it up and bind it tightly, and call it ' Apep
" the Enemy.' " The papyrus which contains these interesting
passages was written about B.C. 312-311, though the compositions
in it are very much older, but it shows that, even at that period,
when the Macedonians had begun to reign over Egypt, and Greek
influence was making itself supreme in the country, the old beliefs
still held sway over the minds of the Egyptians. In^fact, in this
matter as in nearly all others, they clung most tenaciously to the
views and opinions of their forefathers.
The primitive Egyptians feared snakes and propitiated them,
and the earliest dynastic people of the country employed charms,
and incantations, and magical formulae to keep snakes, and serpents,
and reptiles of every kind from their dead ; the priests of
Heliopolis respected the prevailing views of their countrymen, and
ancient formulae against snakes were copied into their funeral
texts. Every Recension of the Booh of the Dead contained
Chapters which were written to preserve the dead from the attacks
of snakes ; it is tolerably certain that some of them contain
formulae which are not older than dynastic times, and these show
that the fear of serpents was as great as ever, although these
reptiles cannot have been so numerous as formerly. The priests
of Amen made snakes to play very prominent parts in the Under-
TUAT AND GEHENNA 273
world, and, curiously enough, they thought that the dead Sun-
god, or the " Flesh of Ra," was re-born into the life of a new day,
only after he had been drawn in his boat through the body of a
serpent. The Egyptians usually had some reason for the things
they said, and wrote, and depicted, and although it is not easy to
find the reason in every case, there is, fortunately, little doubt
about it here. They observed that snakes sloughed their skins
from time to time, and that their bodies were much improved in
appearance as the result, and it is pretty certain that they had this
habit of snakes in their minds, when they made their god Ra as a
new being to emerge in his boat out of the great serpent which lay
in deep undulations between the end of the Tuat and this world.
Reference has already been made to the influence upon the
hell of the Copts of the old Egyptian mythology about the Tuat,
and it is right here to point out that the Hebrews appear to have
borrowed from it many of their ideas concerning the abodes of the
dead in the Underworld. It is quite certain that the hell of which
they conceived the existence was not derived from the Babylonians,
for we know from the story of Ishtar's descent into the " land of
no return " that, although it had Seven Gates, it contained no pits
of fire or monster serpents. Ishtar, we are told, found it to be a
place of darkness, and she saw that the beings in it were dressed
in garments of feathers, and that dust and mud were their food.^
The commonest of the names which the Hebrews gave to the
abode of the damned is Ge Hinnom,^ or Gehenna, which was
originally the Valley of Hinnom, that lay quite near to Jerusalem,^
where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch ; * this name
passed into the New Testament under the form Feewa, and into
Arabic literature as " Jahannam." ^ The portion of the Valley of
Hinnom where the sacrifices were burnt was called " Topheth."
According to the Rabbis " Gehenna " was created on the second
day of creation, with the firmament and the angels, and just as
there were an Upper and a Lower Paradise so there were also two
^ See L. W. King, Bahijlonian BeUgion, p. 179 f.
2 DJnnil 3 ]sI"q^ generally ideatified with the Wadi er-Rababi,
* See 2 Kings xxiii. 10. " ^^j;^
T
274 HALLS OF GEHENNA
Gehennas, one in the heavens and one on the earth. As to the
size of Gehenna we read that Egypt was 400 parassangs ^ long and
400 parassangs wide, i.e., about 1,200 miles long by 1,200 miles
wide ; that Nubia (w\d) was sixty times as large as Egypt ; that
the world was sixty times as large as Nubia, and that it would
require 500 years to travel across either its length or its breadth ;
that Gehenna was sixty times as large as the world ; and that it
would take a man 2,100 years to reach it.^
In Gehenna, as in Paradise, there were seven " palaces "
(D^byn), and the punishments which were meted out to their
inhabitants varied both in kind and in intensity. In each palace
there are 6,000 houses, or chambers, and in each house are 6,000
boxes, and in each box are 6,000 vessels fitted with gall. Gehenna
is so deep that it would take 300 years to reach -the bottom of it ;
according to another opinion it is 300 miles long, 300 miles wide,
1,000 miles thick, and 100 miles deep. The fire in each palace is
fiercer and more destructive than that in the palace preceding,
and the flames of the deepest portion of it are able to consume
human souls utterly, which fire upon earth can never do. Each
palace is, according to one view, under the command of an angel,
who is subservient to Dumah, the prince of Gehenna, and who has
with him tens of thousands of angels who are occupied in judging
sinners and sealing their doom ; but according to another the
seven mansions are ruled, under Dumah, hdm, by three angels
called Mashkhith, Af, and Khema. The voices of the beings in
Gehenna rise up to heaven mingled with the cries of the wicked.
Dumah, the prince of Gehenna, seems to have been of Egyptian
origin, for we read, " At the time when Moses said, 'I will perform
"'judgments on all the gods of Egypt,' Dumah, the prince of
" Egypt, went 400 miles and God said unto him, ' This decree is
" ' decreed by me, even as it is written, I will visit the host of the
" ' height in the height ; ' ^ and in that same hour sovereignty was
" taken away from him, and he was appointed prince over
" Gehenna, and some say that he was set over the dead."
^ The parassaBg = 30 stadia, and the stadion = 202 yards,
" Eisenmeiiger, EntdecTctes Jiidenthum, part ii., p. 328.
'* Isaiah xxiv. 21.
HALLS OF GEHENNA 275
Another prince of Gehenna was called Arsiel, and his duty
was to stand before the souls of the righteous to prevent them
from praying to God on behalf of the wicked. Opinions vary as
to the number of gates or doors which are in Gehenna, some saying
there are 50, others 8,000, and others 40,000 ; but the writers
who followed the best traditions fixed the number at seven, and
this agrees with the best Muhammadan tradition also. Finally, as
a river runs through the Tuat so a river or canal flows through
Gehenna. The first division of Gehenna is 100 miles long and 50
miles wide, and it contains several pits wherein fiery lions dwell ;
when men fall into the pits the lions consume parts of them and the
fire devours the remainder, but soon afterwards they come into being
again and have to pass through the fire which is in the second
division, when they are again consumed and again come to life.
In this way they have to pass through the fire of all the seven
divisions. According to another opinion one half of Gehenna
is fire and the other half hail, and the ang-el who is in charg-e
drives the souls of the damned from the fire into the hail and from
the hail into the fire without ceasing. Another writer says that
each of the seven divisions of hell contains seven streams of fire
and seven streams of hail, and that each division is sixty times as
large as that which is immediately above it. In each division are
7,000 small chambers, and in each chamber 7,000 clefts, and in
each cleft 7,000 scorpions, and in each' scorpion seven joints, and
in each joint 1,000 vessels of gall; through it flow seven rivers
filled with deadly poison, and the damned have to pass one half
of the year in the fire, and the other half in the hail and snow,
which are far more terrible than the fire. Moreover, from
under the throne of God Almighty there goes forth a river
of fire which empties itself upon the heads of the wicked, but
most of these have a rest from their punishment for one hour
and a half three times a day, i.e., at the times of morning,
mid-day, and evening prayer, and they have rest the whole of
each Sabbath and of each festival of the new moon. Some of
the Rabbis believed that the punishment of the wicked would
last for ever, but others thought that a period of punishment six
or twelve months in length would suffice for their purification.
276 TUAT AND GEHENNA
Those who are damned shall not remember the names which
they bore upon earth, and although the angels beat them and call
upon them to declare their names, they shall not be able to do so ;
this view was clearly held by the Egyptians, for we are specially
told in the text of Pepi I. (line 169), " Pepi is happy with his
"name," I '''^ — fSii 1 ° § ' '^^'^-^. From the facts
recorded above it is easy to see how much the Hebrews were
indebted to the Egyptians in the construction of their Gehenna,
and how closely they fitted native beliefs into a framcAvork of
foreign conceptions. Some of their writers seem to have possessed
a better insight into such matters than others, whilst a few of them
unconsciously reproduced the original conception of the Tuat as
the place of destruction for the enemies of the god, and believed
that Gehenna, or hell, would be abolished. These thought that at
some future time God would remove the sun from its place and
would place it in the second firmament, in a hollow place or
chamber specially prepared for it, and that having judged and
condemned the wicked He would send them into this chamber,
where the burning heat of the sun would consume them.^ The
Kabbis generally took no pains to say either how the fires of
Gehenna were started, or how they were maintained, but Rabbi
Yannai and Rabbi Shim'on ben-Lakish evidently thought it out,
and so reduced Gehenna, unintentionally, to the place where a
physical sun supplied the consuming fire, and did for the damned
among the Hebrews exactly what it did for the enemies of Ra
among the Egyptians.
It must be noted that the Gehenna of the Hebrew lacked
the serpents of the Egyptian Tuat, but when we consider the
difference between the physical characteristics of Egypt and those
of Syria and Palestine this is not to be wondered at. In
predynastic times Egypt was filled with ser^^ents of every kind,
and the terror which they inspired lived in the minds of the
people of dynastic times long after the country had been
practically cleared from these reptiles. In Palestine and Syria
snakes were never very plentiful, but in the region of Southern
* Eisenmenger, op. cit., p. 366.
APEP AND TIAMAT 277
Babylonia, whence came Abraham and his companions, they must
have existed in large numbers. It is a curious fact that the
Hebrews, who borrowed so largely in their cosmogony from
Babylonian sources, did not also borrow in some form or other
the monster Tiamat, which played in their mythology the same
part that Apep or Apepi played among the Egyptian gods. The
Babylonian Tiamat waged war against Marduk, the champion
chosen by the gods, and was held to be the incarnation of all evil,
both physical and moral ; and although the Hebrews assigned to
the serpent cunning and guile, and declared that he was " more
^' subtle than any beast " (Gen. iii. 1), they hardly considered him to
be a great physical power which waged war against the sun daily.
Tiamat, as we learn from a cuneiform text,^ was 50 kashu long,
and the height of its undulations was 1 haslm ; its mouth was one-
half a gar, or six cubits wide, and it moved in water 9 cubits
deep. Three other measurements are given, viz., 1 gar, 1 gar, and
5 gar, but as the text following them is broken it cannot be said to
what they refer. Now, the hashu was the distance usually passed
over in a journey of two hours, and the cubit may be considered
to be about 20 inches. Reckoning the hashu at six miles we thus
have a monster 300 miles long, which had a mouth 10 feet wide,
and which moved in undulations six miles high ! The measure-
ments of 5 gar probably refers to its girth, and if this be so the
creature was 100 feet round its body.
When Tiamat had been slain we are told that its blood flowed
from its body for three years, three months, and one day, and we
are able to obtain an idea of its huge size from the statement that
when Marduk had smashed in its skull with his club, and had slit
the channels of its blood, he split it, like a flat fish, into two
halves, one of which he made use of to form the " covering of the
'^ heavens." ^ There is no doubt that originally the Babylonian
Tiamat was nothing but the rain clouds, and the mist and fog
which lie over the Tigris and Euphrates in the early morning at
certain seasons of the year, and which when j looked at from the
^ See King, Cuneiform Inscriptions from Babylonian Tablets, etc., pai't xiii.,
pi. 33 f., London, 1901 ; and King, Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. i., p. 119.
^ King, Babylonian Religion, p. 77.
278 APEP, TIAMAT, LEVIATHAN
desert appear like a huge serpent stretched along the length of the
stream, both up and down the river. The Hebrew Scriptures
contain several allusions to a great nature serpent,^ though he
finds no place among the Seven Mansions of their hell. Thus the
prophet Amos (ix. 3) refers to the serpent at the bottom of the
sea, which Yahweh would command to bite the wicked if they
attempted to hide there ; in Psalm Ixxiv. 13 f. God is referred to
as the breaker of the heads of Leviathan and of the dragons in the
waters ; in Isaiah (li. 9).we have, " Awake, awake, put on strength,
'' 0 arm of Yahweh ! Awake, as in the ancient days, in the
" generations of old ! Art thou not it that did slay the monster
" Rahabh, and wound the serpent (tannin) ? " Rahabh may here,
as some have argued, refer to Egypt, but if so, it is to Egypt as the
home of the great serpent monster which we now know as Apepi,
and which was to the prophet Isaiah the type and symbol of the
country, and not to the judgments which Yahweh meted out to
that land.
The Hebrew writers refer to the nature serpent under several
names, e.g., tannin, 7id]chdsh, rdhdbh, but the monster referred
to under them is, in reality, one and the same, i.e.. Leviathan
{]D'^'h livydthdn), " the serpent of many twistings or folds," and
both Nebuchadnezzar II. and the " King of Assyria" are identified
with him (see Jeremiah li. 34 ; Isaiah xiv. 29). According to the
Rabbis he was created on the fifth day of the week of creation,^
and was hunted for slaughter by Gabriel, and with the assistance
of Yahweh was slain by him ; here we have a series of close
resemblances to the history of Tiamat, for Gabriel is in every way
the counterpart of Marduk, and Yahweh takes the place of Anshar
as the head of the gods. Finally, Leviathan was slain by Gabriel,
just as Tiamat was killed by Marduk, and out of the skin of
Leviathan Gabriel made a tent wherein the righteous might dwell,^
and a covering for the walls of the city of Jerusalem. This
' See Goldziher, Mythology of the Hehreu-s, pp. 27, 28; King, Bahylonian
Religion, p. 115.
- Eisenmenger, op. cit., p. 877.
=* in^l"? b^ "DV^ Wpn^b HDID nwyh ^^T^ linn t^^npn l^np: Eisen-
menger, op. cit., p. 888.
SEVEN-HEADED SERPENT 279
covering was bright and shining, and it emitted light which was so
strong that it coukl be seen from one end of the world to the other.
The last statement recalls the words of the Fourth Tablet of the
Creation Series, which tell how Marduk made a canopy in the
heavens of one-half of the body or skin of Tiamat. In the Hebrew
version of the story it is said that the righteous feed upon the body
of Leviathan, but there is no equivalent passage in the cuneiform
texts at present known. From the passage in the Psalm already
quoted (Ixxiv. 13) it would appear that Leviathan had many
heads, but this view is not supported by any known description of
Tiamat, and in the absence of any evidence on the subject we must
assume that the idea of a plurality of heads came from Egypt.
In the Book of Revelation (xii. 3 ; xiii. 1) mention is made of a
" great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven
" crowns upon his heads," which appeared in heaven, and of a
beast having seven heads and ten horns, with ten crowns upon his
horns, which came up out of the sea, but the idea of these also was
not derived from Babylonia. All the available evidence goes
to show that whilst the Hebrew conception of Leviathan was
of Babylonian origin that of a hell of fire was borrowed from
Egypt.
Similarly, the seven-headed dragon and beast of the Book of
Revelation, like the seven-headed basilisk serpent mentioned in
" Pistis Sophia," ^ have their origin in the seven-headed serpent
which is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. In Revelations ix. 19,
horses are referred to which had tails " like unto serpents, and had
heads," and here again we have an idea suggested by a monster
which inhabited one of the Pylons of the Tuat, and which had the
body of a crocodile and a tail formed of a writhing serpent's body
with a serpent's head for the tip of it.
But although the Hebrews borrowed the framework of their
hell from Egypt they appear to have made no use of the means by
which the Egyptians hoped to escape from Amentet and the Tuat,
that is to say, there is no evidence to show that they had in early
ciT ft goq epe c<^cyqe rt <s.ne epoq ; ed. Schwartze, pp. 136,
140, 147.
280 GNOSTIC MAGICAL NAMES
times any equivalent for the system of words of power which
played such an important part in the magical side of the Egyptian
religion. On the other hand, the Copts, at least those of them who
belonged to Gnostic sects, retained the beliefs concerning the
efficacy of magical words and names, and they introduced them
into their writings in a remarkable manner. Thus in " Pistis
Sophia " we are told ^ that after His resurrection Jesus stood up
with His disciples by the sea, and prayed to His Father, whom He
addressed by a series of magical names, thus : — Aeeiouo, Iao, Aoi,
OiAPSiNOTHEK, Thernops, Nopsitek, Zagoure, Pagoure, Neth-
MOMAOTH, Nepsiomaoth, Marakhakhtha, Thobarrabau, Thar-
NAKHAKHAN, ZoROKOTHORA, Ieou, Sabaoth.^ Whilst He was say-
ing these names Thomas, Andrew, James, and Simon the Canaanite
stood in the west with their faces towards the east; and Philip
and Bartholomew stood in the south with their faces towards the
north. In another passage '^ Jesus addresses His Father in these
words and by these names : — Iao Iouo, Iao, Aoi, Or a, Psinother,
Theropsin, Opsither, Nephthomaoth, Nephiomaoth Marakhakh-
tha, Marmarakhtha, Ieana menaman, Amanei tou ouranou,
IsRAi Hamen Hamen, Soubaibai appaap Hamen Hamen, deraarai
Hapahou Hamen Hamen, Sarsarsartou Hamen Ham£n, Koukiamin
MiAi Hamen Hamen, Iat, Iai, Toua Hamen Hamen Hamen, Main-
MARi, Mari^:, Marei Hamen Hamen Hamen.^ In another place ■'
Ed. Scliwartze, p. 357.
' ^.eHioYo)" i<s.uj" A.ujr uji<s.\l/irf(ju0ep' oeprfcxj\|/' rrcju-vJ/iTep*
X^X^^' ^ujR<s.pp<\RA.v ^^<pm^x^X^"' ^opoKoeop^Sc-
■' Ed. Schwartze, p. 375.
* i^ui) lOYuj' iXcju* <3s.cjur cjui*^ vl/muueep' 0Gpuj\I/irf uj\(/i-
eep rf6cl>eoJui4S.aje- rtecI>iojui<5»cUue- stx^p^^x^X^^' ^^p^^-
p^X^^' 'H<^rf<s. JuierfAJuiAff ^x».^<^tHi^ toy oYp^^rroY* icp*^!
^^^xjLHti g,<\JuiHrf coYR<J^iR<^r A.nn^3<n- g,<MJiHff 2,AAjiHrf
^6p<S.<^p<M g<5cn<S.gOY ^^^kJLHti g^^JUHfi' CiS.pCApCAp'TOY
i^^i' TOY^n ^^^sjLHti ^^^xxHn ^^<xxHti' xid^m JutApr jui<\piH'
juiA.per g,<^JuiHrf g<\juiHrf ^^xxHtt (p. 375).
' Ihid., p. 375.
GNOSTIC MAGICAL NAMES 281
He addresses those Avho forgive sins by their names thus : —
SiPHiREPSNiKHiEu, Zenei, Berimou, Sokhabeikh£ie, Euthari,
Nanai Dieisbalm^rikh, Meunifos, Khirie, Entair, Mouthiour,
Smour, Peukher, Oouskhous, Minionor, Isokhobortha ; ^ and
immediately afterwards He calls upon the Powers of His Father by
these names : — Auer, Bebro, Athroni, Eoureph, Eone, Souphen,
Knitousokhreoph, Mauonbi, Mneuor, Souoni, Khokheteoph,
Khoehe, Eteoph, Memokh, and Anemph.^ An examination of
the books of " Pistis Sophia" will show that many of the details of
the "mysteries" which are there described are based upon ancient
Egyptian beliefs, and that the whole of the doctrine of spiritual
light which is expounded therein only represents a spiritualized
conception of the far-reaching character of the powers of the light
of the sun upon both the living and the dead, which the dynastic
Egyptians recognized and described centuries before the Christian
era. This was expressed in the terms of a highly artificial system
wherein words of power, magical names, emanations, ranks of
angels, gates, watchers, and purely Christian conceptions were
mixed up together, with the Lord Christ as the central Figure.
Much has yet to be done before all the comparisons and connections
between the Eg^^ptian and Christian systems can be fully worked
out, but the facts quoted above will, perhaps, suggest the import-
ance of the study.
^ ci4>ip6\j/rfi^i6Y' ^errer Repumov cox4S.RpixHp' ev-
e<^pr ti^tt^i' 2s.ieicR<^2\JuiHpix' JuteYftmoc- x^P^^' eitT^Mp"
jLioYeioYp* cjuioYP" neY^Hp" ooYc^oYc* jumiortop' icoxo
Rope-s. (p. 376).
^ AYHp' RERpcju' Aoponr HOYffecl>* Hcjuite" coYc|>erf Krfi-
'T0YC0^p6ajcJ>- jui<^YcjurrRr JuirfeYujp' coYcum ^cjux6T"ecxjcl>-
X^X^' £T"eujcj>' xi^xjLUJX' <^rfHJuicI> (p. 376).
( 282 )
CHAFPER VII
THE OLDEST COMPANY OF THE GODS AND
THE CREATION
IN the earlier chapters of this work mention has been made
of three companies of gods, the existence of which was
formulated by the priests of Heliopolis, and it has been shown that
a company of gods usually consisted of four pairs of deities, four
gods and four goddesses, and a president or chief of the same.
We have also shown that a jmiit or company of gods did not
necessarily contain nine deities only, and that it as often as not
was supposed to include more than nine gods. Originally, how-
ever, the Helio-
politan priests, or
the authors of the
theological system
exhibited in the
Pyramid Texts, in-
tended the 2)(^ut to
The Oldest Compauy of the Gods. COUsist of uiue gods,
and it seems that they arrived at this decision as the result
of the addition of their own local god Tem to a group of four
pairs of deities, four gods and four goddesses, whom they had
grouped together according to the plan followed by an older school
of theologians in forming an older company of the gods. The
company of the gods last mentioned is probably the oldest of all
the companies in Egypt, although for various reasons it never
seems to have attained to the popularity of the " great j>a-?it of the
gods of Annu," or to have enjoyed such a prominent position in
the minds of the religious philosophers of Egypt. This is not to
be wondered at, for whilst the Heliopolitan company of the gods
included the Sun-god Ra-Tem, or Rc'i-Tem-Khepera, and Osiris,
THE FIRST EIGHT GODS 283
the god of the dead, the older company consisted of pairs of deities
who represented religious conceptions, and faiths, and beliefs,
which even at that remote period had been long dead, and the
meaning of which had been forgotten. The very gods of the older
company had been superseded, and their worship abolished, and
the knowledge of their history and attributes was preserved only
in the minds of priests and religious experts, who probably
regarded the ancient views about these gods which had come down
to them as the product of men belonging to a lower stage of
civilization than their own. The older company of the gods here
referred to have been described as personifications of aspects, or
phases, or properties of primeval matter, and may be thus
enumerated : —
000 ^""""^ S\ AT coo
AA/V\/\A
AA/WW
Kekui, ^ w ^ "T^ ^ . Kekuit, ^\\\'=W^
Kerh, ^l^i- Keehet, ^IZti'
o
The character of the first pair of gods can be readily deter-
mined by the hieroglyphics which form their names ; thus the
TTTTJT AA/WV\ K\
name Nu, '^'ww. /H ^^ is expressed by three vases of water which
indicate the sound, and the outstretched heaven, p=^, and the
determinative for water, aaaaaa , and the sign for " god," all of which
show that this deity was the god of the watery mass of the sky.
The goddess Nut, ^^^^^^ ^ J) , was merely his female counter-
part, as the signs, 3, indicate. From various passages found
in the religious, mythological, and funereal texts of all periods it
is abundantly clear that in primeval times at least the Egyptians
believed in the existence of a deep and boundless watery mass out
of which had come into being the heavens, and the earth, and
everything that is in them. The germs of all and every kind of
life were in this watery mass, and they were supposed to have
AW^/^A
' The old form is ODD, or (Unas 199, 399), or ^ (Teta 78).
284 NU AND NUT
been there from the beginning. They do not seem to have
formulated any exact ideas about the position of this watery mass
in the sky or heaven, and they certainly did not attempt to assign
to it dimensions which could be expressed by the ordinary methods
of measurements ; in later times, however, Nu was frequently
identified with the sky, jpet ^, and with the heaven above it,
nnt^ . though, strictly speaking, he represented the watery
mass which was supposed to exist between the two. It must also
be noted that the ocean and also the Nile ^ were identified with
Nu, whose characteristics appear to have changed during the latter
part of the dynastic period. The name of this god has been
compared with the Coptic word rfOYft " abyss," " deep," and the
like, and it is possible that it may have some connection with it,
but it is difiicult to see how in that case it can mean '^ young,"
as the late Dr. Brugsch suggested.^ The true meaning is much
more likely to be suggested by the play on the words Nu and nen
which we have on p. 309 in the passage, " I raised them up from
out of the watery mass {nu) out of inactivity" {nen), i.e., Nu was
the inert mass of watery matter from which the world was
created. Of Nut, the female counterpart of Nu, little need be said
here, except that she was regarded as the primeval mother, with
whom in later dynastic times were identified several goddesses,
e.g., Hathor, Mut, Nit, or Neith, and whose attributes were
assigned to them. The forms in which Nu is depicted vary.
Thus he is represented in human form holding a sceptre when he
forms one of the company of the gods of Amen, but he is also
represented with the head of a frog, which is surmounted by a
beetle,^ and even with the head of a snake. The goddess Nut is
also represented in human form, but sometimes she has the head
of a uraeus, surmounted by a disk,^ and at other times she has
the head of a cat.^
' Compare Horapollo I. 21 (ed. Leemans ; p. 28): — NctAow Se avajSacrtv
o-rjju,atvovT€s, ov KaXovaiv AlyvTTTKTTi Now ; attention was first drawn to this passage
by Tattam.
■ Beligion unci Mytliologk, p. 129.
^ Lanzone, Dizionario, ])1. 1G7, No. 2.
' Ibid., No 3. ' Jhid., pi. 170, No. 2.
KEKUI AND KEKUIT 285
The characteristics of the second pair of gods, Hehu, § § y r^ ?
and Hehut, || >> ^ J) ? ^i'<3 not easy to determine. According
to Signor Lanzone they are personifications of male and female
elements of fire/ and from the ancient pictures of them Ave see that
the Egyptian artists regarded them from different points of view.
Thus in one group of the eight primeval gods Hehu is represented
in one of the forms of Nu, i.e., frog-headed, already described, and
Hehut in the form of Nut ; ^ and in another group Hehu has the
head of a serpent, and Hehut that of a cat. According to the
late Dr. Brug^sch ^ the name Heh is connected with the word
which indicates an undefined and unlimited number, i.e., heh, Mm ;
when applied to time the idea suggested is "millions of years,"
and Heh is equivalent to the Greek alayv. In several passages
quoted by Dr. Brugsch mention is made of a god Heh,
who seems to be a personification of the atmosphere which
exists between heaven and earth, and to be identical with
Shu, and that distinguished Egyptologist went so far as to
compare his functions with those which were exercised by
xlion, Eros, and Pneuma in Greek systems of philosophy.
In a small scene reproduced by Signor Lanzone* we see the
god Harpocrates in his usual attitude, ^, just above what appears
to be a smaU tree. On the right kneels the goddess Hehut, who
is making her outstretched hand and arm a support for the left
hand of the young god which rests upon it ; on the other side
kneels Hehu, who is represented in the act of raising or supporting
the feet of the god, above whose head are the beetle and disk.
The characteristics of the third pair of gods, Kekui,
^^^ w % ^T^ J , and Kekuit, ^^ w % ^^ ^ ^ , are easier to
determine, and it is tolerably certain that these deities represent
the male and female powers of the darkness which was supposed to
cover over the primeval abyss of water ; they have been compared
by Dr. Brugsch with the Erebos of the Greeks. In some aspects
they appear to represent both the night and the day, that is to
^ Lanzone, Bizionario, page 685. ^ Ihid., pi. 168 ff.
=* Beligion, p. 132. " Op. cit., p. 685.
286 KERH AND KERHET
say, Kekui is called " the raiser up of the light," and Kekuit " the
" raiser up of the night." It is not difl&cult to see how these
deities obtained these names, for Kekui represents that period of
the night which immediately precedes the day, and Kekuit is
that period of the night which immediately follows the day. At
one period Kekui and Kekuit were considered to be gods of
Elephantine, and their attributes were identified Avith those of the
Nubian god Khnemu and his female counterpart Sati ; but this, no
doubt, was a result of regarding Kekui and Kekuit as personi-
fications of the Nile-god Hapi, whose hidden fountains lay beneath
the rocks at some part of the Island of Elephantine. According to
another view the crocodile-god Sebek, one of whose chief seats of
worship was at Kom Ombo, was a personification of the old
primeval god Kekui, and in any case Sebek was certainly con-
sidered to be one of the principal forms in which the soul of the
primeval darkness loved to array itself.^ In the scenes in which
the forms of the oldest paut or company of the gods are repre-
sented Kekui is usually given the head of a serpent, but Kekuit
has the head either of a frog or a cat.^ In one scene Kekui and
Kekuit are identified with Ka and Kait, LJr^, U (]() ^j *^®
former being called the " grandfather of all the gods," and the latter
the " grandmother of the divine company," ^ \\ ^ \^ '•'''^^ ^ P ' -^^
this scene Ka or Kekui has the head of a frog surmounted by a beetle,
and Kait or Kekuit the head of a serpent surmounted by a disk.
The characteristics of the fourth pair of gods, Kekh,
S I .-r-^Si Jj, and Kerhet, ^ 8 ^~^ J), are not easy to define,
and the texts in some places give quite different names where we
should expect to find theirs ; thus we have Ni, () [) Jj HHL , or
Nenu, '^'^'^^ (9 Jj , or Nut, ^^ ^ ^ , or Amen, (I Jj , instead
AAAAAA
of Kerb, and Ennit. (1(1 , or Nenuit, '^^^ ^ , or Nut,
/V>AAAA
^Q, or Nit, 01^^, or l\ ^ J}, instead of Kerhet.
The common meaning of the word kerh is " night," and according
Brugsch, Beliylon, p. 142. ' Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 168 ff.
THE FIRST EIGHT GODS 287
to this the deities Kerh and Kerhet would represent the male and
female powers of night; on the other hand, the determinative <t-~-2^,
which occurs in each name, shows that these gods were regarded
as personifications of some apparently inactive powers of the
primeval watery abyss, and we may, therefore, regard them as
types of powers of nature in a state of repose either before or after
a state of activity. In the scenes in which the forms of the oldest
company of the gods are represented, Ni, that is to say, Kerh, has
the head of a frog, with or without a beetle upon it, or the head of
a snake, and Ennit, that is to say, Kerhet, has either the head of a
frog or that of a cat.
It is not easy to reconcile the various views which
Egyptologists have held about the above four pairs of deities, and
it certainly appears as if the ancient Egyptians themselves had no
very clear ideas as to their functions. As to their antiquity there
is no room for doubt, for although the oldest pictures of their
forms do not date from a period anterior to the reign of Seti I., it
is quite clear, from the way in which they are mentioned, that
they represent traditional ideas of an extremely ancient character.
One proof of this is the careful mention of the female counterparts
of the four great primeval gods, for it was usual in the case of gods
who were the product of the purely dynastic period to pay small
attention to the goddesses who were regarded as their wives.
Thus Ra and Amen possessed female counterparts called Eat, ® J) ,
and Ament, [1 a/wwn JO ^ but they play no prominent parts in
Egyptian mythology, and are rarely mentioned in the texts. Man
always has fashioned, and probably always will, fashion his god,
or gods, in his own image, and he has always, having reached
a certain stage in development, given to his gods wives and
offspring ; but the nature of the position taken by the wives of
the gods depends upon the nature of the position of women in the
households of those who write the legends and traditions of the gods.
The gods of the oldest companv in Egypt were, the writer
believes, invented by people in whose households women held a
high position, and among whom they possessed more power than is
usually the case with Oriental peoples. Nut, Hehut, Kekuit, and
288 APZU-RISHTU, MUMJNIU-TIAJMAT
Kerhet are the equals of the gods Nu, Heh, Kekui, and Kerh, and
not merely the bearers of offspring as were the later goddesses.
The general drift of the texts wherein the four pairs of gods
are mentioned indicates that three pairs were qualities, or
characteristics, or attributes of the fourth pair personified, although
some would make the four pairs represent the male and female
elements of the Four Elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, and
others would make them stand for the primeval Matter out of
which all things have been made, and primeval Space, and
primeval Time, and primeval Power. To say definitely and
exactly what they represent is in the present state of Egyptological
knowledge impossible, for the evidence which would enable us to
arrive at a final decision in the matter is not forthcoming.
Before we pass on to the consideration of the events which
resulted in the creation of the sun and later of the world, it will be
interesting to compare with the above four pairs of gods the group
of gods that we meet with in the " Seven Tablets of Creation," ^
which are Avritten in cuneiform, and contain the views and beliefs
of the Assyrians as to the origin of the gods, and of the world,
and of mankind. The old company of primeval gods mentioned
in these Tablets are also eight in number, and they fall readily
into four pairs. The first pair consisted of Apzu - EiSHTtr,
>-^Ty ^^y *^TIt^ *"^T ^TII^' ^•®"' *^^ "primeval abyss," and
MuMMU-TiAMAT, ►^ t^^yyy *^ *^]< ^X^- '^^^ meaning of the
word mummii is unknown,^ but Tiamat is the name of the female
counterpart of Apzu-rishtii, and she became the mother of offspring
by him. These two deities, then, represent the male and female
powers of the watery mass which contained the germs of all life,
and of every kind of life, and they existed at a time " when of the
" gods none had been called into being, and none bore a name, and
" no destinies [were ordained]." When " their waters were
^ The best copies of the cuneiform texts hitherto issued will be found in the
publication of the Ti'ustees of the British Museum, entitled Cimeiform Texts from
Babylonian Tablets, part xiii., Loudon, ]901. These, with many additional texts,
are given in Mr. L. W. King's Seren Tablets of Creation with transliterations,
translations, notes, etc., London, 1902. (Vol. I.)
- Mummu = the Mwv/xis of Damascus, and probably means " chaos."
LAKHMU AND LAKHAMU 289
" mingled together " then the work of creation began. We thus
see that Apzu-rishtu and Mummu-Tiamat are the exact equivalents
in the Babylonian cosmogony of Nu and Nut in the Egyptian, and
that they are the originals of the Greek forms 'Airaacjv and TavOe,
which are given in the scheme of Damascius. ^
The next pair of gods in the Assyrian texts are Lakhmu,
►^y ::yyy< »^, and Lakhamu, ^^] >-^y {^< >^, but of their
functions we know nothing, any more than we do of the Egyptian
primeval gods Heh and Hehut. The names of the third and
fourth deities in the list of Damascius (ed. Kopp, p. 125) are Jaxos
and ^ocxTJ, but these are clearly mistakes for Aaxos and AaxQ, i.e.,
Lakhmu and Lakhamu.
According to the First Tablet of the Creation Series " ages
increased,"^ and then two more gods came into being, viz.,
Anshak, ^ i^, and Kishar, >->-y <]^ i^, i.e., the 'Ja-acopos
and Ki(T(TapYi of Damascius. Now up to this point the three pairs
of gods of the Assyrians agree exactly with the first three pairs of
gods of the oldest Egyptian company of the gods, and the points
of resemblance are striking. We see from the table printed by
Brugsch^ that the Egyptian authorities differed as to the names of
the god and goddess of the fourth pair of gods, some giving Kerh
and Kerhet, others giving Amen and Ament, and others giving
Enen and Enenet-hemset, and others Ni and Ennit ; all, however,
agreed that a fourth pair of deities were necessary to complete the
company, and that one must be a god and the other a goddess.
The First Tablet of the Creation Series mentions a seventh
deity called Anu, ►^y yf *:/-, who is clearly to be identified with
the "Avoq of Damascius, and an eighth deity called Nudimmud,
'^y »/- ^ly *^II4i., which is a title of the god Ea ; the context
which would probably have supplied us with the name of a ninth
god is broken away, and at present there is no means of restoring
^ He was born in Syria, probably at Damascus, in tbe last quarter of the Vth
century of our era. He studied at Alexandria and at Athens, and was a pupil of
Marinus and Zenodotus, and when Justinian closed the schools at Athens he went
to the court of the Persian king Khusrau (Chosroes). The best edition of his work
on " Fii'st Principles" is that of Kopp, published in 1828.
" King, Bahrjlonian Religion, p. 61. ^ Religion, p. 127.
U
290 ANU, EA, BEL
the passage. Both these deities are masculine, whereas one should
be masculine and one feminine. In the list of the primeval gods
given by Damascius following Kicrcrapr) we have "Avo^;, 'IXXti^o?,
and '^ds ; the first of these is, as we have said, Anu ; the second
is the god Enlil, >^]][ t^]] ; and the third is Ea, ^ tjiyj ]}.
But all these are gods, and there is no goddess among them, and it
is difficult not to think that in making the recension of the story
which is preserved in cuneiform the Assyrian editors substituted
the three gods Anu, Bel, and Ea, who represented heaven, and
earth, and the abyss respectively, for those who were in the older
recension. The Assyrian copy which we now have was made
during the reign of Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria from B.C. 668
to B.C. 626, presumably from a Babylonian archetype, but it is
impossible to say to what period the actual version which it
represents is to be assigned. The Seven Tablets of Creation
contain several Assyrianized forms of ancient Sumerian words, a
fact which proves that the original traditions incorporated in the
work must be of Sumerian origin, and must have been formulated
in remote antiquity. It is surprising therefore to find so much
similarity existing between the primeval gods of Sumer and those
of Egypt, especially as the resemblance cannot be the result of
borrowing. It is out of the question to assume that Ashur-bani-
pal's editors borrowed the system from Egypt, or that the literary
men of the time of Seti I. borrowed their ideas from the literati of
Babylonia or Assyria, and we are therefore driven to the conclusion
that both the Sumerians and the early Egyptians derived their
primeval gods from some common but exceedingly ancient source.
The similarity between the two companies of gods seems to be too
close to be accidental, especially as there is every possibility that
the Sumerian system was taken into Egypt by the same people
who carried into the country the art of making bricks, the use
of the cylinder seal, and the like.^ Be this as it may, it is
certain that the company of primeval gods, which, as we have
seen, was common to the Sumerians and Egyptians, was quite
different from the companies of gods of which Osiris and Ra-Tem
were the heads in Egypt, and also from those which Avere formed
1 Sec my E(jiji>t in the Fredynastic and Archaic Periods, p. 41.
THE PRIMEVAL SPIRIT 291
in Babylonia and Assyria when these countries were inhabited by
Semitic populations.
Now the First Tablet of Creation gives us to understand
clearly that the work of creation began when the waters, or
essences, of the first pair of primeval gods, Apzu and Tiamat,
were mingled together, and that the offspring of this union were
Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, etc. What the views
of the ancient Egyptians on this subject were we do not know, but
it is quite clear from the allusions in many texts that the second,
third, and fourth pairs of the gods already mentioned were the
offspring of the union of the first pair Nu and Nut, i.e., that they
were their attributes. We may also conclude that Nu and Nut
were the male and female powers of the vast and inert watery
mass, with its male and female counterparts Ni and Ennit, and
that the second pair of gods, Heh and Hehut, represented their
eternal nature. The third pair of deities are nothing but the male
and female counterparts of Darkness personified, and thus we have
as the primeval material from which everything was made an eternal,
boundless, watery mass wherein are the germs of life, male and
female ; this watery mass is, however, enveloped in thick darkness.
The late Dr. Brugsch, basing his opinion upon certain statements
made in the Egyptian texts, declared that the primeval spirit (Urgeist)
felt the desire for creative activity, and that his word awoke the
world to life in a form in which it had already been mirrored in his
mind, and that the first act of creation began with the formation out
of the primeval watery mass of an egg, wherefrom issued the light of
day, i.e., Ra, which was the immediate cause of all life in the earthly
world. In this light, that is to say, in the Rising Sun, the almighty
power of the divine spirit incorporated itself in a brilliant form.^
1 "Der gottliche Urgeist, unzertrennlich von dem Urstoff des Urwassers,
" f iiKlte das Verlang-en Bach schopferisclier Thatigkeit und sein Wort erweckte die
" Welt zum Leben, deren Gestalt nnd formenreiclie Gebilde sich in seinem Auge
" vorher abgespiegelt batten, Ibre korperlicben Umrisse und Farben entspracben
" nack ibrer Entstehnng der Wabrbeit d.b. der Urvorstellungen des gottlichen
" Geistes iiber sein kiinftiges Werk. Der erste Scbopfungsact begann mit der
" Bildung eines Eies aus dem Urgewasser, aus dem das Tageslicht (Ra), die un-
"mittelbare Ursacbe (ra) des Lebens in dem Bereiche der irdiscben Welt beii-aus-
" bracb. In der aufgebenden Sonne verkorperte sicb die Allmacbt des gottlicben
" Geistes in ibrer glanzvollsten Gestalt" (Beligion, p, 101),
292 THOTH AND HIS PAUT
The opinion of the great Egyptologist is of great weight on
all matters of this kind, but it must be remembered that we have
no authority in the texts for all the details of his narrative of the
events which are supposed to have taken place before the appear-
ance of the sun in the heavens, and that for many of the ancient
Egyptian views on the subject of the Creation our only authorities
are compositions which, in the forms in which we know them, are
not older than the period of the end of the Middle Empire and
that of the beginning of the New Empire, and many of the views
and opinions expressed in them date from the same periods. That
the sun was the product of the primeval watery mass of Nu the
Egyptians believed beyond doubt, because they declared repeatedly
that Ra came forth from Nu, but they did not, as far as we know%
make it to be the dwelling-place of a primeval spirit (Urgeist)
which designed and planned the future world in its mind before
it beo:an to create it, and which carried out the various works of
creation on the lines which it had evolved in its consciousness long
before the darkness which lay on the watery mass was pierced by
the light of the sun. We know that the priesthood of Hermopolis,
the Khemennu of the Egyptian texts, i.e., the " city of the Eight
Gods," where Nu, Nut, Hehu, Hehut, Kekui, Kekuit, Kerh, and
Kerhet were worshipped, placed at the head of their divine
company the god Thoth, to whom certainly in later times were
ascribed many of the attributes which Dr. Brugsch's "Urgeist"
possessed. But J;here is no proof whatsoever that Thoth was the
original leader of this company of gods ; on the contrary, there is
reason for thinking that if the Eight ever had a leader in the
beginning of their existence he must have been a form of the
Sun-god. The fact is that as the priests of Heliopolis formed
their companies of gods from systems already in existence, and
placed their own local gods at the head of them, so the priests
of Hermopolis for some reason unknown to us adopted the
primeval company of Eight, and appointed their own local god
Thoth to be their head. The attempt to find any equivalent of
the " spirit of Elohim," which, according to the Book of Genesis,
moved, or brooded, on the face of the waters before the creation of
light, has nothing to support it in the Egyptian texts.
PAPYRUS OF NES-AMSU 293
But although we do not know what the primitive Egyptians
imagined to be the means by which the Sun came into being, we
have a very good idea of what they thought about the creation of
the gods, and of the world, and of the animals, birds, trees, fish,
reptiles, etc., which are in it, and by wliose agency it was brought
about. We owe our knowledge of these things to a papyrus
preserved in the British Museum (No. 10,188), which was written
for a priest of Panopolis (the modern Akhmim), of high rank and
lineage, called Nes-Amsu, or Nes-Min, during the thirteenth year
of the reign of " Alexander, the son of Alexander," i.e., about
B.C. 312. This remarkable document contains, among other
valuable compositions, a series of Chapters of a long magical work
which was written with the object of effecting the destruction of
the arch-fiend Apepi and his fiends and devils of darkness, and of
keeping storms and hurricanes out of the sky ; many of the
Chapters are followed by rubrics which, as we have already shown
in the description of the Tuat given above, contain directions for
the performance of the ceremonies which were to accompany the
recital of the words. Where the Chapters were to be recited is
not clear, but as two out of three works in the papyrus were
chanted in the temple of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, at Thebes,
we shall not be far wrong if we assume that the third was a service
which was performed in the temple from time to time. The first
work, the " Festival Songs of Isis and Nephthys," was a very
important service, and the second, the " Lamentations of Isis," was
probably a supplement to it ; two priestesses, who dressed in the
characters of Isis and Nephthys, and personified these goddesses,
sang the sections, or "houses," of the Festival Songs in turn on
the great commemorative festivals of Osiris, and as the "Lamenta-
tions" were rhythmical they were probably sung at the same
service.
The rubric of the "Festival Songs " orders that they be sung
in the temple of Amen-Ra, and as the third work, the "Book
of Overthrowing Apepi," was devoted to the protection of the Sun-
god Ra, the great lord of the temple, provision must have been
made for reciting it there. Be this as it may, our present interest
in the papyrus centres in the fact that it contains two copies of
294 THE CREATION
the story ^ of the Creation which are of the greatest interest.
Curiously enough, each copy is inserted among the Chapters in the
main body of the work, and it seems as if they represent two
distinct versions, although in many places the text in each is
identical. Each copy is entitled, " The Book of knowing the
Evolutions of Ra, and of Overthrowing Apepi." The word here
rendered by "Evolutions" is Jche2)eru, ^ "^T^ U^^, being derived
from the root hheioer^ )||, which means "to make, to fashion,
" to produce, to form, to become," and in a derived sense " to roll,"
so that the title might be translated the " Book of knowing the
" Becomings of Ra," i.e., the things which were made, or created,
or came into being through Ra. In the text the words are placed
in the mouth of the god Neb-er-tcher, ^ 3 , the lord of the
universe and a form of the Sun-god Ril, who says, " I am he who
" came into being in the form of the god Khepera, S ^^ (I ^ ,
" and I was the creator of that which came into being, that is to
" say, I was the creator of everything which came into being ; now
'' when I had come into being myself, the things which I created
" and which came forth from out of my mouth were very many."
In these words Neb-er-tcher, or Ra, says that he took upon himself
the form of Khepera, i.e., that he was the god who was most
intimately connected with the creation of things of every kind.
Khepera was symbolized by a beetle which belonged to the class
of " Coprophagi," or " dung- eaters," which having laid its eggs in
masses of dung rolled them about until they became circular in
form. These balls, though made of dead, inert matter, contained
the germs of life, which, under the influence of warmth and heat,
grew, and in due course developed into living creatures which
could move about and seek their food. At a very early period in
their history the Egyptians associated the sun's disk with the dung
ball of the beetle, partly on account of its shape, and partly because
it was the source of heat, and light, and life to man, even as the
dung ball was to the young beetles. Having once got the idea
that the disk of the sun was like the ball of the beetle, they went a
step farther, and imagined that it must be pushed across the sky
^ The first copy is in column xxvi. and the second in column xxviii.
THE CREATION 295
by a gigantic beetle just as the dung ball was rolled over the
ground by a beetle on earth, and in pictures of the sunrise we
actually see the disk being pushed up or forward into the sky by a
beetle. Gradually the ideas of new life, resurrection, life in a
new form, and the like, became attached to the beetle, and the
god with the attributes of the beetle, among which in later days
was included the idea of self-production, became one of the most
important of the forms of Ra, and the creator of heaven, and earth,
and the Tuat and all that is in them.
Having declared under what form he had come into being
Khepera goes on to say that his power was not exhausted by one
creative act, but that he continued to create new things out of
those which he had already made, and he says that they went forth
from his mouth. The word "mouth" may be here a figurative
expression, but judging from other parts of the text we are
probably intended to understand it literally. The god continues
his narrative thus : — " Heaven did not exist, and earth had not
" come into being, and the things of the earth (plants ?) and
" creeping things had not come into existence in that place (or, at
" that time), and I raised (or, built up) them from out of Nu from
" a state of inactivity." Thus it is clear that Khepera himself was
the one thing besides the watery abyss of Nu which was then in
existence, and it is evident that we are to understand that he
performed the various acts of creation without the help of any
female principle, and that Nu had nothing to do with them
except to supply the primeval matter, the "Urstoff " of Brugsch,
from which all things were made. The word rendered above by
inactivity is enen. II AH'^^" , and it ought to refer to the
things which Khepera says he raised up out of Nu, in which case
we must understand that everything in heaven and in earth was at
that time existing in a quiescent state in the watery mass of Ku.
The narrative continues : "I found no place there whereon I
" could stand. I worked a charm upon my own heart (or, will),
" [and] I laid a foundation in Maa, [and] I made every form (or,
" attribute). I was one by myself, [for] I had not emitted from
" myself the god Shu, and I had not spit out from myself the goddess
296 MAAT AND HOKHINIAH
" Tefnut ; there was no other being who worked with me." The
things made clear by this passage are that Khepera alone was the
creator, and that he had no place to stand upon in performing the
various acts of creation. The words, Khut-nd em dh-d, here
rendered " I worked a charm upon my heart," present difficulty,
but this or something very like must be their meaning.
The word
in texts of the kind generally means " to
" perform a magical rite or ceremony," and the author of the
story of the creation before us found himself obliged to make the
god resort to magical powers to get himself out of a difficulty ;
that Khepera worked in some way and by some means upon his
heart or will is clear, and as a result he laid a foundation for
himself and the work which he was about to do in Maa. The
name f) Jj may be read either as Maa or Shu, but Shu cannot be
the reading here because in the next sentence Khepera tells us
that he had not at that time emitted Shu from himself. From the
texts of all periods we learn much about the conceptions which the
Egyptians had arrived at concerning Maa, and it is clear that the
word primarily meant ''what is straight," and that it also came to
mean " straightness, rectitude, uprightness, right, law, order,
" regularity, justice," and other significations of like character ; the
goddess Maat, ^^ '=^ ^S) , was the personification of " Truth."
The idea which the text is intended to convey here is that Khepera
laid the foundation of the future world according to a clear, well-
defined, and unalterable plan, wherein there was no error ; Mad
was with Khepera exactly what Hokhmah, riDDn (a word somewhat
inadequately rendered "wisdom" in Proverbs viii. 2 fF.), was to
Yahweh. Wisdom says that she was set up from everlasting,
from the beginning, or ever the earth was, when there were no
depths, before the mountains were settled, and before the hills
was she brought forth when as yet Yahweh had made neither the
earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the earth,
and that she was there when he prepared the heavens and placed a
circle upon the face of the depth (Proverbs viii. 23 ff.).
The narrative continues : "I made a foundation in (or, by)
" my own heart, and there came into being multitudes of things,
TEM, SHE, TEFNUT 297
" of things from the things of what was produced from the things
" which they produced." This sentence is both involved and
redundant, but about its meaning there is fortunately no difficulty,
for the writer only makes the god assert in an emphatic manner
that everything that is came into being as a result of the act of
the god in laying a foundation in his own heart, and that when
once the creative processes had been set in motion they continued
their operation of their own accord, apparently without any direct
interference from the original creative power. In the next
sentence we have a reference to a curious belief which was already
current in the Vlth Dynasty, but at that period it had reference to
the god Tem and not to Khepera, and occurs with the following con-
text : — " This Pepi washeth himself in the Lake of Aaru wherein
" Ra washeth himself; Horus hath brought the back of this Pepi,
'' and Thoth hath brought his legs, and Shu hath lifted him up
'' to heaven ; 0 Nut, stretch out thy hand to Pepi. Tem hath
" departed to Annu to satisfy his love of pleasure ; he hath thrust
" his member into his hand, and hath performed his desire, and
" hath produced the two children Shu and Tefnut,^ and these two
" children put Pepi between them, and they set him among the
" gods which are in Sekhet-hetepet." In the story of the creation
Khepera is made to say, " I had union with my hand, and I
" embraced my shadow in a love embrace ; I poured seed into my
" own mouth, and I sent forth from myself issue in the form of
" the gods Shu and Tefnut." Now a myth of this character can
only be the product of a people at a low level of civilization, and
it is difficult to understand the character of the mind of an author
who in one sentence helps Khepera out of a difficulty by ascribing
to him the possession and use of magical powers, and in another
reduces him to the necessity of committing an act of masturbation
in order to begin the generations of the gods, and yet assigns to
I AAA/W\ Q V-A Vv\ I
AWV\A
\ \ ^^
298 APPEARANCE OF RA
him at the same time many of the powers which are assigned by
Christian nations to God. The only possible way of accounting
for this gross passage is to assume either that it was copied into
the papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, or Nesi-Min, by the scribe simply
because he found it in the archetype from which he was working,
or that the author, knowing that Shu and Tefnut were held to be
the children of Khepeni, and that this god was unaccompanied by
any female counterpart, explained the origin of his children in the
manner described above. But in any case this brutal example of
naturalism was not intended to be obscene, and it must be regarded
as a survival in literature of the dynastic period of one of the
coarse habits of the predynastic Egyptians, that is to say, of one of
the indigenous African tribes from which dynastic Egyptians were
partly descended.
The next section of the narrative is diflScult to translate and
explain, for it contains words which Khepera puts into the mouth
of his "father" Nu, who says that his eye, i.e., the Sun, was
covered up behind Shu and Tefnut, but that after henti periods,
P \5 \5 =*='^S, had passed^ that he had become three
gods instead of one, and after he had come into being in this
earth, Shu and Tefnut were raised up from out of the watery
mass wherein they were, and they brought his eye in their
train. The general meaning of these words seems to be that when
Khepera was existing in Nu by himself the sun, in which he
afterwards incorporated himself, was hidden in the watery deep ;
but as soon as Khepera had produced Shu and Tefnut the sun
emerged from the deep and followed in their train. In other
words, we learn that the Eye, 3 , of Nu was unable to make
itself seen until after Shu and Tefnut had come into being. We
need not tarry to consider all the various attributes of these twin
gods, and it will be sufficient to say here that Shu represents the
daylight and, in some cases, the atmosphere which supports the
heavens and keeps them above the earth, whilst Tefnut, the female
1 The hea period = 60 years, but when two such periods are referred to the
writer does not mean necessarily 120 years, but some long, indefinite period of
time.
CREATION OF MAN 299
counterpart of Shu, represents rain, dew, and moisture. We have
akeady seen that these twin gods proceeded from Khepera, and
the words which are used to express the idea of emission, i.e.,
dsliesh \\ ^^ -^^"'^ , and tef "^ #^''^ , indicate the processes by
which they came into being as separate entities. The creation of
Shu made a space between the heavens and the earth into which
the Eye of Nu could rise from out of the waters and shine, and
because the sunlight immediately followed the creation of Shu that
god is sometimes identified with light, and is regarded as its
personification. The general sense of the passage under discussion
makes it necessary to assume that Nu is identified with Khepera,
and vice versa.
The next passage refers to the creation of man, and the god,
presumably Khepera, says, " Now after these things, I united my
" members, and I wept over them, and men and women came into
" being from the tears which came forth from my eye." Of this
passage there are two interpretations possible. We may either
assume that the tears which fell from the Eye of Nu, or Khepera,
are the rays of light which fell from the sun, and that men and
women are the offspring of the light, or what is far more probable,
that men and women are the product of the tears of water which
fell from the eye of the god upon his members,^ and that they
turned into human beings straightway. Meanwhile the god Nu or
Khepera had made another Eye, by which we are, no doubt, to
understand the Moon, and it is said that when the first Eye found
that a second had been made it raged at the god ; now when the
god saw this he endowed the second Eye with some of the power
(or, splendour) which he had made, and having made it take up
its position in his face it henceforth ruled the whole earth. After
this the god brought about the creation of plants, and herbs, and
reptiles, and creeping things. Finally, the gods Shu and Tefnut
produced the gods and goddesses Seb and Nut, Osiris and Isis, Set
and Nephthys, and Heru-khent-an-maati, i.e., the " Blind Horus,"
one after the other at one birth, and these deities multiplied
J I
1
Q. I
300 KHEPERA AND OSIRIS
offspring in this earth. Thus we have a complete account of how
a male god who existed alone in the watery abyss of Nu produced
from himself by unnatural means a pair of deities, one male and
one female, and how this pair produced three other pairs, i.e.,
three gods and three goddesses, and one male deity in addition, in
fact the ])aut or company of the great gods of Heliopolis, which in
this instance was made to include ten gods. It is interesting to
note the order in which the acts of creation took place. The self-
existent god who had lived for ever created : 1. The light. 2. The
firmament, or home of moisture, i.e., clouds and rain. 3. Man-
kind. 4. The second (?) Eye, i.e., the Moon (?). 5. Plants, and
herbs, and reptiles, and creeping things. 6. Seven deities, four
being male and three female.
In the second version of the story of creation which we shall
now describe some interesting variants will be found, and we shall
see that the god Osiris is made to usurp the position which in the
first version is occupied by the god Khepeni. The ojDening words
are : — Neb-er-tcher saith, " I am the creator of what hath come
" into being, and I myself came into being under the form of the
" god Khepera, and I came into being in primeval time. I came
" into being in the form of Khepera, and I was the creator of what
" came into being, that is to say, I formed myself out of the
" primeval matter, and I formed myself in the primeval matter.
" My name is Ausares, 1] (® [I ^^^ Jj (i.e., Osiris), [who] is the
" primeval matter of primeval matter. I have done all my will in
" this earth, I have spread abroad therein, and I have made strong
" (or, lifted up) my hand." In this passage we have Neb-er-tcher,
who came into being in the form of Khepera, identifying himself
with Osiris, who is described as the pautet pautti 1^ \\
^S. _^ ^ 'm^ ^ ' 5 i-6.j the very essence of primeval matter, and
the source of all created things. This is a remarkable attribute to
ascribe to the god of the dead, and it is only understandable when
we remember that it was a common belief of the Egyptians that
life rose out of death. The narrative continues, " I was alone, for
"they (i.e., the gods) were not born, and I had emitted from
" myself neither Shu nor Tefnut. I brought my name into my
POWER OF THE NAME 301
" own mouth, that is to say [I uttered it as] a word of power,
' 0 ■ Mv ^ Sh ' 'f'^fi/^rt^, and I forthwith came into being under
" the form of things which were created and under the form of
" Khepera."
Here we have an interesting statement, for the god tells us
how he came into being, and he is not content with merely saying
that he existed. We know from the literature of Egypt how
great a part words of power played in its magical and religious
systems, and how the believer hoped to obtain all his desires by the
utterance of special names, or words, or formulae. Here, however,
we have the god Osiris transforming himself from the essence of
primeval matter into the active principle of creation by merely
uttering his own name. The belief in the potency of certain
names is very old in Egypt, and rests upon a still older idea that
no creature, animate or inanimate, could be said to have an
existence until it possessed a name, an idea with which every one
is familiar from Genesis ii. 19 f., where we read that Adam gave
names to every beast of the field and to every fowl of the air, and
to all cattle. Every god and goddess and supernatural being were
believed to possess a hidden name by, and through, and in which
he and she lived. The man who could find out these names was
able to command the help of the gods who bore them, and the
man who could obtain by any means a hidden name for himself
thought he would be the equal of the gods. On the other hand, to
destroy or " blot out " a name was to wipe out of existence the
being who bore it, and it was for this reason that in the earliest
days of civilization in Egypt services in which the name, or
names, of the dead were commemorated, and were mentioned with
laudatory epithets, were established. We may note in passing
that one of the greatest gifts which was to be given to the true
believers of the Church of Pergamos was " a white stone, and in
" the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving; he
" that receiveth it" (Revelation ii. 17). Here is a direct allusion
to the old belief in the ef6.cacy of an amulet which was made of a
certain stone, and inscribed with a name, by and through and in
which its owner would enjoy life and happiness.
302 THE CREATION
Returning to our narrative we find that the god continues,
" I came into being from primeval matter, and I appeared under
" the form of multitudes of things from the beginning. Nothing
" existed at that time, and it was I who made whatsoever was
" made. I was alone, and there was no other being who worked
" with me in that place. I made all the forms under which I
" appeared by means (or, out of) the god-soul which I raised up
" out of Nu, p^ J|, out of a state of inertness (or, out of the
" inert mass)." In this passage we have a new element introduced,
that is, a " god-Soul," ^^^ Jj, or, in other words, the Soul which
possessed the quality of neter, and was existent in a quiescent
state in the inactive watery mass of Nu. When we consider the
general ideas of the Egyptians about the soul this statement need
not surprise us, for we know that they endowed every object in
nature with a soul, and if they assumed the existence of a mass of
primeval matter they were bound, logically, to give it a soul.
Thus we have in the second version of the story of the creation an
idea which is wholly wanting in the first. We next read, " I
' found there (i.e., in Nu) no place wherein I could stand. I
' worked a spell on my heart, and I laid a foundation before me,
' and I made whatsoever was made. I was alone. I laid a
' foundation in (or, by) my heart, and I made the other things
' which came into being, and the things of Khepera which were
' made were manifold, and their ofi'spring came into existence
' from the things to which they gave birth. It was I who emitted
' Shu, and it was I who emitted Tefnut, and from being one god
' (or, the one god) I became three, that is to say, the two other
' gods who came into being on this earth came from myself, and
' Shu and Tefnut were raised up from out of Nu wherein they had
' been. Now, behold, my Eye, ^^ 3 (i.e., the Sun), did they
' bring to me (or, I brought to them) after a double hen period
' [had passed since] they went forth from me. I gathered
' together my members which came forth from my own person
' after I had union with my hand, and my heart (or will) came
' unto me from out of my hand. The seed fell into my mouth,
' and I sent forth from myself the gods Shu and Tefnut, and from
THE CREATION 303
'' being one god (or, the one god) I became three, that is to say,
" the two other gods who came into being, m
" on this earth came from myself, and Shu and Tefnut were raised
" up from out of Nu wherein they had been. "
The repetitions in the above passage are due to the fact that
the scribes possessed many variant readings of portions of it, these
representing, no doubt, the opinions of different schools, and the
scribe of the papyrus of Nes-Amsu, with characteristic reverence
for what was written, incorporated them all into his text.
The next passage contains a very interesting addition and
variant reading, which makes " father " Nu declare that his Eye,
i.e., the sun, was covered over with large numbers of " bushes "
for an indefinite number of periods, each containing sixty years ;
now "bushes," otherwise called "hair," is the name given to the
clouds which hang round the sun at sunrise, and obscure his rays,
and it seems as if the god intends to complain that his sight was
impeded by them for centuries. The words following seem to
indicate that vegetation and reptiles, including worms or serpents,
proceeded from the god Rem, and that they were the product of
the tears which fell from Khepera, but this rendering is not wholly
certain. The vegetation and worms here mentioned are forms of
mist and cloud which wholly or partially hide the sun, and the line
is probably added to the text to account for the " bushes " of which
" father " Nu spoke above. Of the god Rem, <=> ^.^ ^^= jj ,
we know nothing, but as the word rem means " to weep," and an
allusion to "crying or weeping," <=> ^<^^^ L is contained in
the line in which the name of the god occurs, we may assume
that he was the personification of Ra's tears. Mention is made
in the Booh of the Dead (Ixxxiii. 4) of a god called Remi,
<=:> ^^^ |](1 <o< jj, who seems to have been the Fish-god, and to
have been identified in some way with Sebek, the personification of
Nu, but it is not clear that Rem and Remi are one and the same god.
We next arrive at the description of the making of man, and
each version of the story of the creation gives a different account.
According to the first, Khepera joined, or united, his members and
304 FOUR RACES OF MEN
wept upon them, and men and women came into being from these
tears ; according to the second, Khepera wept with his Eye, and
men and women came into being forthwith. It is impossible to
say decidedly which is the older view, but it is probably the
former. The difference between the methods employed in creating
gods and men must be noted ; the gods are the seed of Khepera,
and they came forth from his mouth, whilst men are only the tears
of the god, and they came forth from his Eye. The older version
makes the tears of Khepera to fall upon his genital organs, and it
is only after they have been in contact with the god's virility
that they turn into human beings. In late dynastic times the
Egyptians divided mankind into four classes, namely, the
Egyptians, the Aamu, the Nehesu, and the Themehu. Thus in
the Book of Pylons ^ Horus says to the " chiefs of Ra," | <=> v^ i ^ ^
who are in the Tuat of the Black Land and the Red Land (i.e.,
Egypt and the deserts to the South), '' Ye are the tears made by
my Eye in your name of ' Men.'"" The Aamu, v\ tQ / — M?^i ,
(i.e., the Semitic nomad tribes of the Eastern Desert), were created
by Horus and Sekhet, Y jj , and this goddess protected their
souls ; the Themehu, or Libyans, i V ^ ' ' "^®^® ^^^^ created
by Horus and Sekhet, and the goddess protected their souls. Of
the Nehesu, 1\ I n^ ^ ' (^•®-' *^® Negroes), Horus says, " I
" masturbated for you, and I have been content at the millions
" who have come forth from me in your name of Nehesu ; Horus
" hath created you, and it is he who hath protected their souls." ^
This last statement is of interest, for it connects the idea of
masturbation with the Negroes, that is to say, with the dark or
black-skinned races of Nubia who lived on the banks of the Nile
1 See Bonomi and Sharpe, Sarcophagus of Oimeuejjthah, pll. 7 and 6d.
Ul^^¥-mf^q-f
/WWSA /WW\A i!^^ Q I' ^ VdT ! (^^^^^^ lG-20).
THE CREATION 305
so far south as the Sixth Cataract, and, as we have ah-eady said,
the legend as to the origin of the gods Shu and Tefnut is far more
likely to have been the product of some indigenous dark-skinned
race than of the group of mixed peoples whom we call Egyptians.
It will be noticed that only the EgyjDtians, or offspring of Ra, are
said to have been produced by the tears of Ra, which are the same
as the tears of the Eye of Horus, i.e., the sun.
According to one version of the story of the creation, men and
women were created after the gods Shu and Tefnut, and before the
plants and reptiles, but according to the other, they were created
after the plants and reptiles ; neither version mentions the creation
of beasts and cattle. A point of interest is that men and women
were not fashioned by Khepera, or Neb-er-tcher, himself, and that
they seem to have come into being almost, as it were, by accident ;
in making the gods Khepera showed both will and design, but men
and women were only the tears which fell, apparently without
volition, from his Eye. But it must also be noted that in both
versions of the Egyptian creation legends it is Ra the Sun-god, the
Eye of Temu, who is in reality the creator of man, and this is
exactly what we find in the Mesopotamian creation legends.
After Marduk had defeated Tiamat and her eleven fiends, and had
split up her body, like a fish, and made heaven out of one half of
her skin, he conversed with Ea, the lord of the great deep, and
declared his intention of making man, in the following words : —
" My blood will I take, and bone will I build up, and I will make
' ' man, that man may . . . . ; and I will build up man who
" shall inhabit [the earth]." This very important passage proves
that the statement of Berosus to the effect that man was made out
of the blood of Bel, i.e., Marduk, was based upon a genuine
Assyrian tradition; unfortunately the cuneiform text,^ which was
1 The tablet is No. 92,629 (obv. 11. 5-7). The text reads :— ^yy<^t
^K « ET !=T s=Eii A4f tm m [^^ i^vm'^]-<
ET ESS -fclTTl M I{ ® TH- gU [ ] M -^ :?F ET E3S
►-t^TTYT T^yy TJ T| T^- r^T^T ^V*^ I da-mi lu-uJc-sur-ma is-si-im-hmi lu-\iib-ni\
lu-ush-ziz-maa amelal^al lu a-me-lu [....] lu-tib-ni-ma amelaTa'] a-shib trsitim. See
L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. i., pp. 86 ff,, and vol. ii., pi. xxxv.
X
306 THE CREATION OF MAN
first identified by Mr. L. W. King, is incomplete, but when
the inevitable duplicate is found we shall probably find the
equivalent of the rest of the story according to Berosus, who says
that the blood of which man was made was obtained from Bel
himself after his head had been cut off.
The passage which follows the mention of the creation of man
in the Egyptian story refers to the Eye of Nu. which, Khepera
says, he endowed with power or splendour, or with the serpent
hhut, '^^ P^ , which possessed both these attributes. The Eye
raged at him when it found " another growth " in its place, by
which, apparently, the moon is referred to, and it made an
onslaught upon the " bushes," i.e., the light clouds, which Khepera
had placed over it to adorn it, or to keep order in it ; but finally
it took up its position in the god's face, and henceforth ruled the
whole earth. The text concludes with the statement that Shu and
Tefnut gave birth to Seb, Nut, Osiris, Heru-khenti-an-maati, Set,
Isis, and Nephthys, and that their ofi'spring increase and multiply
in the earth, and that they invoke the name of Khepera and so
overthrow their enemies, and that they create words of power,
\ ^^ ^ §0 ' ' ^^<3^6^y they overthrow Apepi. We may now
summarize briefly the results of the two versions, and Ave shall
find that the Egyptians thought that a self-begotten and self-
existent god lived alone in a primeval watery mass, which was
itself part male and part female., and which was the abode of two
living powers, the one male and the other female, and also of a
soul, and that this mass was of unlimited extent, and was eternal,
and was enveloped in thick darkness. The self-existent god, at
some unknown time and for some unknown reason, uttered his
own name as a word of power, and he straightway came into being
under the form of the god Khepera. He next roused the soul of
the watery abyss out of inactivity, and then having brought some
influence, probably by the utterance of certain words, to bear upon
his heart, he produced some material place, probably the earth,
whereon he could stand. From this place he produced the gods
Shu and Tefnut, which act resulted in the immediate creation of
light and in the dispersion of darkness, and in the formation of the
THE CREATION OF MAN 307
sky or firmament. These acts were followed either by the creation
of men and women, or by the creation of vegetation and creeping
things and reptiles of every kind ; of the creation of stars and of
birds and beasts nothing is said. The above statement represents
one of the earliest of the opinions of the Egyptians about the
creation in its simplest form, the one in fact which was first
adopted by the priests of Heliopolis, and was then modified to suit
the theological system which they formulated. The texts on
which it was based are transcribed into hieroglyphics with
interlinear transliterations and translations in the following
chapter.
( 308 )
CHAPTER VIII
THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE
GODS AND OF THE WORLD. VERSION A.
xxvi. 21.
Shed
The Book
enti
of
(^
a
rehh
O
hheperiL nu
knowing the evolutions of
oi
Bd
Ra,
sekher
[and] of over-
throwing
em-khet
D D
Apep
tchettu
The words of
Neh-er-tcher
Neb-er-tcher
tchet -f
[which] he
spake
kheper - / nuk ])u kheper
after he had come into being. I am he who came into being
22.
^r^ I
em Kheperd kheper-nd kheper kheperu
in the form of I was (or, became) the creator of what came into
Khepera, being,
ji W ^-^-^ ^ ^11
kheper kheperu neh em-khet kheper-d dsht
the creator of what came into all; after my coming into many
being being
THE CREATION
309
(3
j\
hheperu em ])er em re-d an
[were] the things which coming forth from my mouth. Not
came into being
.^-fu. zl
s:
1
hhe'per pet an Ichejper ta an qemam
existed heaven, not existed earth, not had been created
^111
J
satat
tchetfet
the things of the earth, and creeping
(i.e., plants) things
bet
I I I
em
in place
pui
that
thes - nd dm - sen
em
Nu
I raised up them from out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss
of water)
<v^ n ran /vvvwx n
J\
A/VW
em enen dn qem-nd bet dhd-nd
from a state of Not found I a place I could stand
inactivity.
w
I
ami
wherein.
Jchut-nd
I worked a charm
em
upon (or, with)
I ^
dbt-d
my heart.
A/VSAAA
I
^
senti-nd em Mad dri-nd dru nebt
I laid a foundation in Maa [and] I made attribute every.
'f^^
a
r^:r-i
P^l
ud-Jcludl dn dshesh-nd em Shu
I was alone, [for] not had I spit in the form of Shu,
an
not
310
THE CREATION
tef-nd
had I emitted
em Tefiiut
Tefnut,^
an
not
Jcheper
existed
hi
another
24.
AA/WV\
/vwv
senti-nd
em
dht-d tches-d
dri-nef liend-d
who worked with me. I made a foundation in my heart my own,
(or, by means of my own will)
hheper
^ III
dsht
hheperu
D
mi
Til
hheperu
[and] there came the multitudes which came of the things which
into being of things into being came into being
e
II
em
from out of
hheperu
the things which came
into being
I
nu
of
M
mesu
births,
5, (3
hheperu
O
nu
I r\ AAAAAA
I I I I I
mesu-sen
(1 0
dnuJi
0
ra
the things which of their births. I, even I,
em
from out of
hat-d
had union
came into being
em
hhefd-d
tatadt-nd
I
Col. xxvii. 1.
with my clenched hand, I joined myself in an
embrace
^^<^<^^D
em
with
hhaihit-d
my shadow
il
hher-nd
I poured seed
em
re- a
into my mouth
tches-d
my own,
1 I.e., I had not sent forth from my body the emanation which took the form
of Shu, nor the moisture which took the form of Tefnut.
THE CREATION
311
i
dshesh-nd
I sent forth issue
(3
^^ ^ 'i
7^ ^ /Vvft/VV\
em /S/m tefnet-nd
in the form of Shu, I sent forth moisture
e?7z- T of nut an
in the form of Saith my father
Tefnut.
dtef-d
Nu
Nu,
satet-se7i
" They make to
be weak
■^
^
I I I I I
/N /W\AAA AAAAAA I | 1 I i^ 0 \
maat-d em-sa-sen tcher
henhenti
uaii-sen
I I I
my eye behind them, because for double henti they proceeded
periods
1
2.
er-d em-hhet Jcheper-d em neter ud neter hhemt
from me after I became from god one gods three,
D
^
D
I s
Izll
er-a
Ichejper-nd em ta pen
had
that is from out of [and after] I came in earth this. Were raised up
myself,
dref
therefore
hi
Shu
Shu
into being
Tdfnut
[and] Tefnut
(^
AAAAAA
fJW'.AA
em
in
enenu
the inert watery mass
I I I I 1
w
l\ A/^NAAA I
A^vVvAA ^-AAA/VA
^ I
un-sen dmi - f
wherein they were,
an- sen na
brought they to me
maat-d
my eye
i ^ I I I
em hhet-sen
in their train.
em-hhet
After
I ^
dref sam-nd dt-d
therefore I had united my members
312 THE CREATION
^AAAA/^A
/ I I I sT I I I I I ^ ^^-^ S= ^ I (3
rem-nd her-sen l-heper reth ]}u em
I wept over them, [and] came into men and from
being women
-^ I <=> ^ . Jf .^
Q
re77??t per em maat-d khdru-s
the tears [which] came forth from my eye, [and] it raged
er-d em Jchet is qemi-s dri-nd het
against me after it came [and] found [that] I had made another
rvV-AAA
em dst-s tebi-s em hliut dru-nd
in its place. [I] endowed it with the power I had made.
(or, splendour) which
AAAA/VN
?l
selchenti dref dst-s em, hrd-d em-hhet
Having made to approach therefore its place in my face, afterwards
A
4. — D
'^i
dref heq-s ta pen er tcher - f hher
therefore it ruleth earth this to its whole extent. Fall
o ■ I I
en at-sen du uahu-sen tehui-nd
their moments (or, seasons) upon their plants, I endowed it
^-P ^kJLP ¥T k iWKV\
thet-s dmi-s per-nd em ucibu
with what it hath in it. I came forth from (or, in the plants,
taken possession of the form of)
THE CREATION 313
^kP
<^ I I I ^^ »c^ , w , Ck ^ _hf^ I I I I
tchetfet neht hheper nebt dm-sen
creeping things all, [and] things which all [are] in them.
came into being
m± hit^.M '■ rz t:zi
I AV^^A/\
mes2i an Shu Tdfnut lienci Nut mesu an
Give birth Shu [and] Tefnut [Seb] and Nut. Give birth
Seh Nut Asdr Her Khent-dn-maa Set Ast
Seb and Nut to Osiris, Horus-Khent-an-maati, Set, Isis,
I I
Nebt-het em khat ud em-sa ud dm-sen
Nephthys from the womb, one after the other of them,
III c 1 I I I I I _M^ I S /WVWV
meS'Sen dshtsen em ta pen
they give birth [and] they multiply in earth this.
THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF THE
GODS AND OF THE WORLD. VERSION B.
xxviii. 20.
a
i\ ? o
^ (0
Shdt ent rekh kheperu nu R
The Book of knowing the evolutions of Ra
<^
sekher Apep tchettu Neb-er-icher tchet-f
[and] of over- Apep. The words of Neb-er-tcher. He says : —
throwing
314
THE CREATION
kheper-d hheper kheperu
" I was (or, the creator of what came
became)
(^
into being.
e
kheperii-]c\j.i]d em
I came into being in
D
kheperu en EJieperd klieper em sep tepi
the forms of Khepera coming into being in primeval time.
(S
kheper-kud em kliepem en Kheperd kheper-d
I came into in the forms of Khepera. I was (or,
became)
being
D
I
kheper kheperu pu en pa-nd
the creator of what came into being, that is to say, I produced myself
du
(E0
pautet
dru-nd
I
p)a-na
from the primeval matter [which] I made. I produced myself
em pautet
from primeval matter.
©0
j:>ft ren-d Ausdres
My name is Osiris,
e
61 22.
pcLutet pautit dri-d mertu-d nebt
the primeval matter of primeval matter. I have done my will all
^ a
^ AA/V\AA
usekht-nd
I c=co«a /wwv
em /5a pen usekht-nd dm - / thes-nd
in earth this, [and] I have spread abroad in it ; I raised up
THE CREATION 315
^§?s3 _1^^ a ^ ™^ Hil'l I', , , ^
tet-d udu-hud an mes-sen an
my hand. I was alone ; not born [were] they. Not
dshesh-nd em Shu dn tdf-nd em Tdfnut
had I spit in the form of Shu, not had I emitted Tefnut
dn-nd re-d tches-d ren-d pit
I brought [into] my mouth my own my name, that is to say,
hehau dnuh 'pu Mieper - nd em
a word of power, and I, even I, came into being in the form
^ i iH I V^ ^ "^ ^ M ([ Jt I ^-^
hheperu hhe^per-hud em kheperu en Kheperd
of things which and I came in the forms of Khepera.
came into being, into being
'®l?i
ir^ £:i
hheper-nd em pautti Icheper
I came into being from the primeval matter, coming into bein^
dsht Jcheperu em tep-a dn klieper
[in] multitudes of forms from the beginning. Not existed
(3
I ^ _Mi^ I S AAAAAA i! W 1 1
hheperu neht em ta pen dri-nd dri
created things any in land this ; I made whatsoever was made
316
THE CREATION
1 „%^-' .
24.
M
P6 ^
(2
Tie^^ udu-Tcl^id^ an Jiheper hi en dru-nef
everything. I was alone, not existed [any other] who worked
hend-d
with me
J
em
in
bet
place
w
put
that ;
art- a
I made
Jcheperu-d
what I made
w
w
I
dmi em ha piii thes-nd
therein by means of divine soul that [which] I raised up
w
AAAAAA
AA/VUVN
ami
em
Nu
em
enen an
therein out of Nu (i.e., the primeval from a state of not
abyss of water) inertness,
^
2=1 J
J\
^
w
/WW
I
qemi-na
found I
bet
dhd-nd
ami
hhut-nd
a place whereon I could stand. I worked with the
spirit [which] was
^ w
25.
^
<^
w
W
em db-d
senti
nd em hrd-d dri-nd
an
in my heart, I laid a foundation before me, I made whatsoever
was made
I
0
^ w
nebt udu-k\_ud'] senti-nd em db-d
all. I was alone, I laid a foundation in my heart,
I
(jemam-na
I made
^^.
0
Jci Jiheperu dsht hlieperu nu
other things which and manifold were the things of
came into being,
Klteperd.
Khepera
which came into being
THE CREATION 317
rtiPiP.T, k ^TMi ? m^
I I I
hheper an mesu-sen em Jcheperu nu mesu-sen
Came into what they gave out of the creations of their offspring,
beinsr birth to
AA/WV\
dnuk pu dshesh-iid em Shu tdf-nd
1, even I, spat in the form of Shu, [and] I emitted
.0^ w^ I k II !!^ Isil ■"
em Tdfnut kheper-nd em neter ud neter hhemt
Tefnut, [and] I became from god one gods three,
jpu er-d hheperiut em ta fen
that is to say, from myself two gods came into being on earth this.
Iz^l ir P
(.^fi^^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^
had dref Shu Tdfnut em Nu
Were raised up therefore Shu and Tefnut in Ku (i.e., the
primeval watery abyss)
T^CCC^ I I I I 1 _S% r-^-^ ,w3ws o I ill j\ 'n I I I I
unen-sen dmi dn maat-d dn-nd sefi
wherein they were. Behold, my eye brought to me they
[js^ ^C^^ ^ I'. I 1
em-hhet henti uau-sen er-d
in the train of a henti period, they proceeded from me.
sam-nd em dt-d per-sen dmi tches-d em-hhet
I collected my members, they came forth from myself after
318
THE CREATION
ra
hat-nd
I had union
t:^
^\
w
em hliejd-d
with my clenched hand,
i-nd
came to me (?)
fet-d
®
=u)
db-d em fet-d dada Jcher em
my heart (or, will) out of my hand. The seed [which] fell into
n I \v I ^-/^
r-rr-il
7'e-d dshesh-nd
my mouth, I spat
0
Col. xxix. 1. ^ R (3
em Shu
tdf-nd
in the form of Shu, I emitted water
1
<^=^
1
e??i Tdfnut hhefer-nd em neter ud neteru
intheformofTefnut, I became from [being] god one gods
I I
(2
t'm
hhemt pu er-d kheperiut
three, that is to say, from myself two gods came into being on
1 3S AA/>AA^
ta pen
earth this.
-HI
had
Were raised up
Mr
dref
therefore
Shu Tdfnut
Shu and Tefnut
em
(^
A/\AAAA
AAA/W\
AAAA/NA
A"'W
I I I I 4
W 1
unen-sen
ami
from out of Nu (i.e., the inert wherein they were,
primeval watery abyss)
an
Saith
1 The paragraph beginning (] ^^^ J) and ending with ;^fe I
/VAA/Wl "^ I i I AA/V\A\ I
is repeated, apparently by inadvertence, in the papyrus.
I I I
THE CREATION
319
3.
dtef-d
my father
uahu
(3 AAAAAA
Nu
^ ktP
W fJCiii I I I I c^ \YJ. _B^ I I I I I
ati-sen maat-d em-sa sen
Nu, ''They covered up my eye after them
[or, made weak]
A /www U U ^5=^0 0 1 J^ Jl III
Sep sen lientiu uabu
[with] bushes, twice, for hen periods.
Vegetation
Will _Hi^ .B?^ / I \ iL{ _B^ _B^ 0
hefi em Rem em rem-th
and reptiles [came] from the god Rem, from the tears
O
er-d ha en maat-d hheper ret
[falling] from me. Cried my eye, came into being mankind.
D
pu fehu-nd sii em khut hhdru-nes er-d
I endowed it with power. It raged at me
w
^
0
ic^P
em-Jchet
after
Jcher
Fell
crz2
em khennu en dst-s
i-s Jcet ret
it came [finding] another growth within its place.
^P ^^ f]^J^^,P ?
>WWAA AAAAAA
en ten-ten-s du uahu-s her
its vigorous power upon its bushes, upon
uahu tehui-nd dm
the bushes [which] I placed there to make adornment in it.
se-ndd dm-s
320
THE CREATION
§\
^ w
S'
ic^P
Tl
Zl
hlienti dref dst-s hrd-d heq-nes ta tcher - /
Ruling therefore [on] its seat in my face it ruleth the whole earth.
mes en Shu Tdfnut Nut Asdr Heru-lchenti-dn-maati
Gave birth Shu [and] Tefnut to Nut, Osiris, Heru-khenti-an-maati,
n
I 1
i^i T.l
flNP
I I
Set Ast Neht-het dn mesu-sen
Set, Isis, Nephthys, [and] behold, their children
^
^
I I
6.
^=K
s
qemam-sen
they create
hheperu
beings
dsht em ta
manifold in earth
D
©
I 1
pen em kheperii nu mesu em
this from the heinous of children, from
INP
I I
fi
I I I
mesu-sen
their children.
® ^ I n ''''^^^
Icheft-sen
their enemies.
shent-sen
They invoke
ren-a
my name.
0
4>, (3
hheperu nu
the beings of
seJcher-sen
they overthrow
I I I
U
e
I A^AAAA
qemam-sen
they create
hehau en
words of power for
7.
sehher Apep du-f her
i
e
^
©
X— /I
«§»
J]
I
ddui
sau her
the overthrow of Apep, who is to be bound by the two hands
THE CREATION
321
/VV\A/VN I \\ /v/V\AAA AVS/SAA
671 AJcer an un ddui - f an im retui -/
of Aker, not may be his two hands, not may be his two feet,
i
^ l^oJl'
I I I
satet - f en dst ud md Jm Rd setchebu-f
may he be chained to one place even as inflicteth Ra his blows
(2 ^
sekhev'tuf her sati-f
W Cr£l
til
utu-nef du sefcfiev'tuf tier sati-J pui
decreed for him. He is overthrown on his back wicked,
^^>^
<^ 1
I
w
I
Q.
senpu hrd-f her dri-nef meni sib
slit is his face for what he hath done, and he remaineth
q^
1 w
^^M
1 (^£1
1 ^
du
sati - f
pui
fu
upon
his back
evil
( 322 )
CHAPTER IX
RA, THE SUN-GOD, ""^Oi), AND HIS FORMS
RA is the name which was given by the Egyptians of the
dynastic period to the god of the sun, Avho was regarded
as the maker and creator of everything which we see in the
visible world around us, and of the gods in heaven, as well as of
heaven itself, and of the Tuat or underworld and the beings
therein ; the original meaning of his name is unknown, but at one
period of Egyptian history it seems to have been thought that the
word rd indicated " operative and creative power," and that as a
proper name it represented in meaning something like " Creator,"
this epithet being used much in the same way and with the same
idea as we use the term when applied to God Almighty, the
Creator of heaven and earth and of all things therein. The
worship of the sun in Egypt is extremely ancient and appears to
have been universal ; at a very early period adoration of him was
associated with that of the hawk-god Heru, who was the personi-
fication of the " height " of heaven, and who appears to have been
a type and symbol of the sun. The worship of the hawk-god
Heru, § "^ % ^? is the oldest in Egypt, and, strictly speaking,
he should have been discussed before Ra, but as Ra and the
personifications of his various forms are the greatest of the gods of
the Egyptians, he must be regarded as the true " father of the
gods," and his attributes, and the myths which grew up round
him must be considered before those of Horus. The god Ra is
usually depicted with the body of a man and the head of a hawk,
but sometimes he is represented in the form of a hawk ; on his
head he wears his symbol, ^, i.e., the disk of the sun encircled by
BOATS OF THE SUN 323
the serpent Ichut, '^^ P^, of which mention has already been
made. When he has a human body he holds the emblem of life, ■¥",
in his right hand, and a sceptre, |, in his left, and from the belt of
his tunic hangs down the tail, which is a survival of the dress of
men in predynastic times, and probably later. Viewed from a
practical point of view Ra was the oldest of all the gods of Egypt,
and the first act of creation was the appearance of his disk above
the waters of the world-ocean ; with his first rising time began,
but no attempt was ever made to say when, i.e., how long ago, his
first rising took place. When the Egyptians said that a certain
thino- had been in existence " since the time of Ra " ^ it
was
equivalent to saying that it had existed for ever.
The Egyptians, knowing that the sun was a fire, found a
difficulty in assuming that it rose directly into the sky from out of
the watery mass wherein it was brought forth, and they, therefore,
assumed that it must make its journey over the waters in a boat,
or boats, and as a matter of fact they believed that it passed
over the first half of its course in one boat, and over the second
half in another. The morning boat of the sun was called Matet,
^. :> — c Q^lj^, i.e., "becoming strong," and the name of
the eveninff boat was Semktet, 1 v\ ^1^^ , i.e., "becoming:
weak"; these are appropriate names for the rising and the
setting sun.^ The course which Ra followed in his journey across
the sky was thought to have been defined at creation by the
goddess called Maat, who was the personification of the conceptions
of rectitude, straightness, law, order, unfailing regularity, and the
like, and there is no doubt that it was the regular and unfailing
appearance of the sun each morning, as much as its light and heat,
which struck wonder into primitive man, and made him worship
the sun. In passing through the Tuat, or underworld, at night
Ra was supposed to be obliged to leave his boat at certain places,
and to make use of others, including even one which was formed
by the body of a serpent ; according to one opinion he changed his
O .^ a ^. 2 See Unas, 1. 292.
324 MYTHOLOGICAL FISH
boat every hour during the day and night, but the oldest belief of
all assigned to him two boats only. Ra was accompanied on his
journey by a number of gods, whose duties consisted in navigating
the boat, and in helping it to make a successful passage from the
eastern part of the sky to the place where the god entered the
Tuat; the course was set by Thoth and his female counterpart
Maat, and these stood one on each side of Horus, who acted as the
steersman and apparently as captain also. Before the boat of Ra, one
on each side, swam the two pilot fishes called Abtu, ^ J ^^, and
Ant, (]^^<&<, respectively.^ But, judging from the religious
and mythological texts which have come down to us, not all the
power of Ra himself, nor that of the gods Avho were with him,
could ward off the attacks of certain fiends and monsters which
endeavoured to obstruct the passage of his boat.
Chief among such were the serpent Apep, g-^^, and
Sebau, p JH^mh, and Nak, I] -^3:^ »h, and of these the
greatest and most wicked was Apep. In dynastic times Apep was
a personification of the darkness of the darkest hour of the night,
against which Ra must not only fight, but fight successfully before
he could rise in the east in the morning ; but originally he was
the thick darkness which enveloped the watery abyss of Ku, and
which formed such a serious obstacle to the sun when he was
making his way out of the inert mass from which he proceeded to
rise the first time. In the Booh of the Dead he is frequently
mentioned,^ but rather from a moral than a physical point of view.
Thus in the xxxixth Chapter the deceased says : " Get thee back,
" Fiend before the darts of his beams. Ra hath overthrown
" thy words, the gods have turned thy face backwards, the Lynx
" (Maftet, ^'^^^O), hath torn open thy breast, the
'* Scorpion goddess, § ^ W^ , hath cast fetters upon thee, and
" Maat hath sent forth thy destruction. Those who are in the
"ways have overthrown thee; fall down and depart, 0 Apep,
1 Boole of flic Dead. {Papyrus of Ami, pi. 1, line 15.)
2 See the Vocabulary to my Chaiyters of Coming Forth by Day, under Apep (p. 61).
RA AND APEP 325
" thou Enemy of Ra." A little further on the deceased says : " I
" have brought fetters to thee, 0 Ra, and Apep hath fallen because
" thou hast drawn them tight. The gods of the South, and of the
" North, of the West and of the East have fastened chains upon
" him, and they have fastened him with fetters ; the god
" Rekes (^^rVf) liath overthrown him, and the god Hertit
" (I^ ^^ '^ ffil '^) ^^*^ P^* ^^^ ^^ chains. 0 Apep, thou
" Enemy of Ra, thou shalt never partake of the delights of love,
" thou shalt never fulfil thy desire ! He maketh thee to go back,
'' 0 thou who art hateful to Ra ; he looketh upon thee, get thee
" back. He pierceth thy head, he slitteth up thy face, he divideth
" thy head where its bones join and it is crushed in thy land, thy
"bones are smashed in pieces, thy members are hacked off thee,
" and the god Aker ( "^^ 3) hath passed sentence of doom
" upon thee."
From the '' Books of Overthrowing Apep," ^ we obtain
further information as to the destruction of the monster, and we
find, that this work was recited daily in the temple of Amen-Ra
at Thebes. The first Book was divided into Chapters, which were
entitled: — 1. Chapter of spitting upon Apep. 2. Chapter of
defiling Apep with the left foot. 3. Chapter of taking a lance to
smite Apep. 4. Chapter of fettering Apep. 5. Chapter of taking
a knife to smite Apep. 6. Chapter of putting fire upon Apep.
The following Books describe with great minuteness the details of
the destruction which was to fall upon Apep, and they are insisted
on to a wearisome degree ; according to these the monster, which
is referred to at one time as a crocodile and at another as a
serpent, is first to be speared, then gashed with knives, and every
bone of his body having been separated by red-hot knives, and his
head, and legs, and tail, etc., having been cut ofi', his remains were
to be scorched, and singed, and roasted, and finally shrivelled up
and consumed by fire. The same fate was to come upon Apep's
confederates, and everything which formed parts of him and of
them, i.e., their shadows, souls, doubles, and spirits, were to be
1 See Archaeologia, vol. Hi. {The Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu).
326 NAMES OF APEP
wiped out of existence, including any offspring which they might
possess. Not content with reciting the words of power which
would have the effect of destroying Apep and his fiends, great care
was taken to perform various ceremonies of a magical character,
which were supposed to benefit not only Ra, but those who
worshipped him on earth. Apep was both crafty and evil-doing,
and like Ra, he possessed many names ; to destroy him it was
necessary to curse him by each and every name by which he was
known. To make quite sure that this should be done effectively
the Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu adds a list of such names, and as they
are the foundation of many of the magical names met with in later
papyri they are here enumerated: — 1. Nesht. 2. Tutu. 3.
Hau-hra. 4. Hemhemti. 5. Qettu. 6. Qerneru. 7. Iubani.
8. Amam. 9. Hem-taiu. 10. Saatet-ta. 11. Khermuti. 12.
Kenememti. 13. Sheta. 14, Serem-taui. 15. Sekhem-hra. 16.
Unti. 17. Karau-anememti. 18. Khesef-hra. 19. Seba-ent-
SEBA. 20. Khak-ab. 21. Khan-ru .... UAA. 22. Nil. 23.
Am. 24. Turrupa(?) 25. Iubau. 26. Uai. 27. Kharubu, the
FOUR TIMES WICKED. 28. SaU. 29. BeTESHU.^
In the Egyptian texts we have at present no account of the
. .- MT^- «-^T^- M^^-T*^- «■
9. t WV. 10. |11J '^ _ >^ , ,,. 11.
^^- 12- '^tk^'^^- 13. "«#^. 14-
W
20. "^,'^^. til. t'^ '^~^WB^ ^- 22.
wm
Aj\rv\r^
23. _^^^. 24.^^-^. 25. (j(je-;^<2?|. 26.
29. AA (2 ^^. See my paper in ArchaeoJoyla, vol. lii., pp. 202-204.
RA AND APEP 327
first fight which took place between Ra and Apep, but it is clear from
several passages in the " Books of Overthrowing Apep " that such
a thing must have occurred, and that the means employed by the
Sun-god for destroying his foe resembled those made use of by
Marduk in slaying Tiamat. The original of the Assyrian story is
undoubtedly of Sumerian origin, and must be very old, and it is
probable that both the Egyptians and the Sumerians derived their
versions from a common source. In the Assyrian version^ Marduk
is armed with the invincible club which the gods gave him, and
with a bow, spear, net, and dagger ; the lightning was before him,
and fierce fire filled his body, and the four-fold wind and the
seven-fold wind went with him. Marduk grasped the thunderbolt
and then mounted his chariot, drawn by four swift and fiery horses
which had been trained to beat down under their feet everything
which came in their way. "When he came to the place where
Tiamat was, Kingu, whom she had set over her forces, trembled
and was afraid, but Tiamat "stood firm with unbent neck."
After an exchange of words of abuse the fight began, and Tiamat
pronounced her spell, which, however, had no effect, for Marduk
caught her in his net, and drove the winds which he had with him
into her body, and whilst her belly was thus distended he thrust
his spear into her, and stabbed her to the heart, and cut through
her bowels, and crushed her skull with his club. On her body he
took his stand, and with his knife he split it " like a flat fish into
two halves," and of one of these he made a covering for the
heavens. With the exception of the last, every detail of the
Assyrian account of the fight has its equivalent in the Egyptian
texts which concern Ra and Apepi. An allusion to the fight is
found in the apocryphal work of " Bel and the Dragon," wherein
we are told that both the god and the monster were worshipped in
Babylon ; but the narrative says that the dragon was destroyed by
means of lumps of pitch, and fat, and hair seethed together, and
that these having been pushed into the creature's mouth he burst
asunder. In Egyptian papyri Apep is always represented in the
form of a serpent, in each undulation of which a knife is stuck,
1 See King, Babylonian Beligion, p. 71 fE.
328 THE CITY OF THE SUN
•^^; in the "Book of the Gates" (see above p. 197) we see him
fastened by the neck with a chain (along which is stretched the
scorpion goddess Serqet}, the end of which is in the hands of a
god, and also chained to the ground by five chains.
It has already been said that Ra was the " father of the gods,"
and we find that as early as the Vth Dynasty a female counterpart,
who was the mother of the gods, was assigned to him. This
goddess is called in the text of Unas (1. 253) Rat, ® , and in later
times her title appears to have been " Rat of the two lands, the
" lady of heaven, mistress of the gods," — n '" ^ f=^ 111'
she is also called " Mistress of Heliopolis." Her full name was,
perhaps, Rat-taiut, <=?=' ^ JJ, i.e., "Rat of the world." She is
depicted in the form of a woman who wears on her head a disk
with horns and a uraeus, and sometimes there are two feathers
above the disk ; ^ the attributes of the goddess are unknown, but it
is not likely that she was considered to be more important than
any other great goddess.
The home and centre of the worship of Ra in Egypt during
dynastic times was the city called Annu, [1^, or An by the
Egyptians, On by the Hebrews, and Heliopolis by the Greeks ; its
site is marked by the village of Matariyeh, which lies about five
miles to the north-east of Cairo. It was generally known as Annu
meht, i.e., Annu of the North, to distinguish it from Annu Qemau,
i.e., Annu of the South," or Hermonthis. Among the early
Christians great store was set upon the oil made from the trees
which grew there, and in the famous " Fountain of the Sun " the
Virgin Mary is said to have washed the garments of her Son ; the
ancient Egyptians also believed that Ra bathed each day at sunrise
in a certain lake or pool which was in the neighbourhood. Of the
origin and beginnings of the worship of Ra at Heliopolis we know
nothing, but it is quite certain that under the Vth Dynasty, about
B.C. 3350, the priests of Rfi had settled themselves there, and that
they had obtained great power at that remote period. The
1 See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 186, Nos. 1-4.
RA WORSHIP 329
evidence derived from the Westcar Papyrus ^ indicates that User-
ka-f, the first king of the Vth Dynasty, was the high-priest of Ra,
and that he was the first to add " son of the Sun " to the titles of
Egyptian monarchs. Up to that time a king seems to have
possessed : — 1. A name as the descendant or servant of Horus. 2.
A name as the descendant or servant of Set. 3. A name as lord
of the shrines of Nekhebet and TJatchit, ^£. 4. A name as king
of the North and South, I \^ . User-ka-f, however, introduced the
title of "son of the Sun," ^^, which was always followed by a
second cartouche, and it was adopted by every succeeding king of
Egypt. According to the Westcar Papyrus User-ka-f and his two
immediate successors Sahu-Ra and Kakaa were the sons of the god
Ra by Rut-tetet, the wife of a priest of the god Ra of Sakhabu,
[q] I ^-^ J|y> © j these were brought into the world by the
goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, and Heqet, and by the god
Khnemu, and it was decreed by them that the three boys should
be sovereigns of Egypt.
This legend is of importance, not only as showing the order
of the succession of the first three kings of the Vth D3masty, but
also because it proves that in the early Empire the kings of Egypt
believed themselves to be the sons of Ra, the Sun-god. All
chronological tradition affirms that Ra had once ruled over Egypt,
and it is a remarkable fact that every possessor of the throne of
Egypt was proved by some means or other to have the blood of
Ra flowing in his veins, or to hold it because he was connected
with Ra by marriage. The bas-reliefs of Queen Hatshepset at
Der al-Bahari, and those of Amen-hetep III. at Luxor, and those
of Cleopatra VII. in the temple at Erment (now destroyed, alas!)
describe the process by which Ra or Amen-Ra became the father
of the kings and queens of Egypt. From these we see that
whenever the divine blood needed replenishing the god took upon
himself the form of the reigning king of Egypt, and that he visited
the queen in her chamber and became the actual father of the child
who was subsequently born to her. When the child was born it
^ See Brman, Westcar Papyrua^ p]. ix. ft.
330 RA AND RA-TEJM
was regarded as a god incarnate, and in due course was presented,
with appropriate ceremonies, to Ra or Amen-Ra, in his temple,
and this god accepted it and acknowledged it to be his child. This
clever priestly device gave the priests of Ra great power in the
land, but their theocratic rule was not always the best for Egypt,
and on one occasion they brought about the downfall of a dynasty.
The first rise to power of the priests of Ra took place at the
beginning of the Vth Dynasty, when the cult of Ra became
dominant in the land. About the time of Userkaf we find that a
number of shrines, which united the chief characteristics of the
low rectangular tomb commonly known by its Arabic name of
mastaha, i.e., "bench," and of the pyramid, /\ , were built in
honour of the god ; ^ but, according to Prof. Sethe, the custom of
building such only lasted for about one hundred years, i.e., from
the reign of Userkaf to that of Men-kau-Heru. Be this as it may,
the priesthood of Heliopolis succeeded in making their worship of
Ra to supersede generally that of almost every other god of Egypt,
and in absorbing all the local gods of importance throughout the
country into their theological system, wherein they gave them
positions subordinate to those of Ra and his company of gods.
Originally the local god of the city was Tem, who was
worshipped there in a special temple, but they united his attributes
to those of Ra and formed the double god Ra-Tem, O ^^^ (Unas,
1. 222). With the close of the Vlth Dynasty the power of the priests
of Ra declined, and it was not until the reign of Usertsen I., about
B.C. 2433, that the sanctuary at Heliopolis Avas rebuilt, or perhaps
entirely refounded. This king dedicated the temple which he
built there to Ra and to two forms of this god, Horus and Temu,
who were supposed to be incarnate in the famous Bull of Mnevis,
which was worshipped at Heliopolis as Apis was worshipped at
Memphis. In front of the temple he set up two massive granite
obelisks, each 66 feet high, the pyramidions of which were covered
with copper; these were still in situ about a.d. 1200. BetAveen
the XTIth and the XXth Dynasties we hear little of Heliopolis, but
1 See an interesting paper on this subject by Sethe in Ae<iyj)tische ZeitscJni/t,
1889, p. Ill ff. (i>,'e IleillgtMl uer des Be' hn alten Eeich).
HELIOPOLIS 331
a further restoration of the temple buildings took place under
Rameses III., who set apart large revenues for the maintenance of
the worship of Ra and the dignity of his priests and servants.
When Piankhi invaded Egypt, about B.C. 750, he visited
Heliopolis after the capture of Memphis, going by way of the
mountain of Kher-aha, ^^^^ ^ CH^©, and he performed
certain ceremonial ablutions in the "Lake of cold water," fO,
I s (A
and washed his face in the " milk of Nu wherein Ra was wont to
" wash his face ;" ^ this " Lake " is clearly the fountain of the sun
which we have already mentioned.
At a place called Shai-qa-em-Annu ^ he " made great offerings
at Sha-qa-em-Amen to Ra at sunrise, viz., white oxen, milk, dnti
unguent, incense, and sweet-smelling woods, and then he passed
into the temple of Ra, which he entered bowing low in
adoration to the god. The chief kher heb priest, r|j '^ ® ,
offered up prayer on behalf of the king, that he might be able to
repulse his enemies, and then having performed the ceremony
connected with the ' Star-room,' , , he took the seteb girdle,
and purified himself with incense, and poured out a libation,
when one brought to him the flowers which are offered up in the
Het-Benbenet,^ r J /vwwn J |. He took the flowers and went
up the steps [leading to] the ' great tabernacle,' I "^^ nrzj ^^ ,
to see Ra in Het-Benbenet. He stood [on the tojDJ there by
himself, he pushed back the bolt, he opened the doors [of the
tabernacle], and he saw his father Ra in Het-Benbenet. He
made adoration to the Matet Boat of Ra (i.e., the boat of the
rising sun), and to the Sektet boat of Tem (i.e., the boat of the
setting sun). He then dreAV close the doors again, and having
affixed thereto the clay for a seal he stamped it with the seal of
r\ AAAAAA (^ ra r\ ,---—~^ A^yVW\ A/VVW\ nnn n A^AAAA Q ^ ,Q,
1 I ^ " AAAAAA ^ V\ I AAAAAA AAAAAA I Q ,^A/vW\ <;:^> ] ^
I AA'WVN ^ ■> — ^ ^^HW I ^^ /WWNA ^-^ /W^ysA I A/VW\A ■■ ■ ' ' I ^ •
(Stele of PiankH, 1. 102).
^ I.e., the shrine or holy of holies of the temple of Rm..
332 HELIOPOLIS
" the king himself. He then admonished the priests [saying], ' I
" have set [my] seal here, let no other king enter herein [or] stand
" here.' And they cast themselves on their bellies before his
" majesty, saying, ' May Horus who loveth Annu (Heliopolis) be
" firm and stable, and may he never come to an end.' And the
" king went into the Temple of Tem, and he performed all the
" ceremonies and service connected with the worship of father
" Tem-Khepera, ^^^ | S ^ | ' ^^® prince of Annu."
From the above it is certain that the sacred boats of Ra were
kept in a sort of wooden tabernacle with two doors, ^| , that
I I
could be fastened by a bolt, and from what we know from pictures
of these boats it is equally certain that the Matet boat contained a
hawk-headed figure of Ra, and that the Sektet boat contained a
man-headed figure of Ra. The text says that the tabernacle,
I "^^ trzD, was situated on the top of a flight of steps, and this is
what we should expect, for we know that the support was intended
to represent the high ground in or near the city of Khemennu,
— AftAAAA .C\
z: II ^ x\® (Hermopolis), whereon Ra established himself on
the day when he proceeded fi'om the watery abyss of Nu, before
the pillars of Shu were set up. In the Book of the Dead this
high ground is called " Qaqa in Khemennu," a ^^ a ^^ '■^^-^
- - ^^^ \\ nn ^ ^ ©. During the period of the Persian
invasion the prosperity of the priesthood of Heliopolis declined,
and it is said that later, during the reign of Ptolemy 11. (b.c. 285-
247) many of its members found an asylum at Alexandria, Avhere
their reputation for learning caused them to be welcomed. A
tradition says Solon, Thales, and Plato all visited the great college
at Heliopolis, and that the last-named actually studied there, and
that Manetho, the priest of Sebennytus, Avho Avrote a history of
Egypt in Greek for Ptolemy II., collected his materials in the
library of the priesthood of Ra. Some time, however, before the
Christian era, the temple buildings were in ruins, and the glory of
Heliopolis had departed, and it was frequented only by those who
went there to carry away stone or anything else which would be
useful in building or farming operations.
CULT OF HELIOPOLIS 333
We have now to consider briefly Avhat was the nature of the
doctrine which was the distinguishing characteristic of the
teaching of the priests of HeliopoHs. In the first place it pro-
claimed the absolute sovereignty of Ra among the gods, and it
made him the head of every company of the gods, but it did not
deny divinity to the older deities of the country. The chief
authorities for the Heliopolitan doctrine are the Pyramid Texts, to
which allusion has so often been made, and from these we see that
the priests of Ra displayed great ingenuity and tact in absorbing
into their form of religion all the older cults of Egypt, together
with their magical rites and ceremonies. Apparently they did not
attempt to abolish the old, indigenous gods ; on the contrary, they
allowed their cults to be continued, provided that the local priest-
hoods would make their gods subordinate to Rii. Thus Osiris
and Isis, and their companion gods, were absorbed into the great
company of the gods of Heliopolis, and the theological system of
the priests of Osiris was mixed with that of the priests of Ra.^
Nothing is known of the origin of Osiris worship, but the god
himself and the ceremonies which accompanied the celebration of
his festivals suggest that he was known to the predynastic dwellers
in Egypt. The belief in the efficacy of worship of the Man-god,
who rose from the dead, and established himself in the underworld
as judge and king, was indelibly impressed on the minds of the
Egyptians at a very early period, and although the idea of a
heaven of material delights which was promised to the followers of
Osiris did not, probably, commend itself in all particulars to the
imaginations of the refined and cultured folk of Egypt, it was
tacitly accepted as true and was regarded as a portion of their
religious inheritance by the majority of the people. On the other
hand, the priests of Ra declared that the souls of the blessed made
their way after death to the boat of Ra, and that if they succeeded
in alighting upon it their eternal happiness was assured. No
fiends could vex and no foes assail them successfully, so long as
they had their seat in the " Boat of Millions of Years; " they lived
upon the food on which the gods lived, and that food was light.
They were apparelled in light, and they were embraced by the god
of light. They passed with Ra in his boat through all the dangers
334 CULT OF HELIOPOLIS
of the Tuat, and when the god rose each morning they were free
to wander about in heaven or to visit their old familiar habitations
on earth, always however taking care to resume their places in the
boat before nightfall, at which time evil spirits had great power
to injure, and perhaps even to slay, the souls of those who had
failed to arrive safely in the boat.
But although the priests of Ra under the Early Empire, and
the priests of Amen-Ra under the Middle and New Empires, were
supported by all the power and authority of the greatest kings and
queens who ever sat upon the throne of Egypt, in their proclama-
tion of a heaven, which was of a far more spiritual character than
that of Osiris, they never succeeded in obliterating the belief in
Osiris from the minds of the great bulk of the population in Egypt.
The material side of the Egyptian character refused to be weaned
from the idea of a Field of Peace, which was situated near the
Field of Reeds and the Field of the Grasshoppers,^ where wheat
and barley grew in abundance, and where a man would possess a
vine, and fig trees, and date palms, and be waited upon by his
father and his mother, and where he would enjoy an existence
more comfortable than that which he led upon this earth. The
doctrine of a realm of light, where the meat, and drink, and
raiment were light, and the idea of becoming a being of light, and
of passing eternity among creatures of light did not satisfy him.
The result of all this was to create a perpetual contest between the
two great priesthoods of Egypt, namely, those of Ra and Osiris ;
in the end the doctrine of Osiris prevailed, and the attributes of
the Sun-god were ascribed to him. In considering the struggle
which went on between the followers of Ra and Osiris it is difficult
not to think that there was some strong reason for the resistance
Avhich the priests of Ra met with from the Egyptians generally,
and it seems as if the doctrine of Ra contained something which
was entirely foreign to the ideas of the people. The city of
Heliopolis appears always to have contained a mixed population,
and its situation made it a very convenient halting-place for
travellers passing from Arabia and Syria into Egypt and ince
n
5s^ N^ ^v V ^^' ' (•^''"^'' 'i^'^'^ -Dcat/, cxxv. 19).
HYMNS TO RA 335
versa; it is, then, most probable that the doctrine of Ra as taught
by the priests of Heliopolis was a mixture of Egyptian and
Western Asiatic doctrines, and that it was the Asiatic element in
it which the Egyptians resisted. It could not have been sun-
worship which they disliked, for they had been sun-Avorshippers
from time immemorial.
The above paragraphs contain a statement of the facts
concerning the worships of Ra and Osiris which appear to be
fairly deducible from the extant religious literature of the
Egyptians, but it is time to let the hymns to these gods declare
the attributes which were assigned to them during the most
flourishing period of Egyptian history. More hymns were ad-
dressed to these two than to any other gods, a fact which proves
that they were considered to be the chief means of salvation for
the Egyptians. The following hymns are taken from the Papyri of
Hunefer, and Ani, and Nekht ^ : —
" Homage to thee, 0 thou who art Ra when thou risest, and
" Temu when thou settest. Thou risest, thou risest, thou shinest,
" thou shinest, thou who art crowned king of the gods. Thou art
" the lord of heaven, thou art the lord of earth ; thou art the
" creator of those who dwell in the heights and of those who
" dwell in the depths. Thou art the God One who didst come
" into being in the beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth,
" thou didst fashion man, thou didst make the watery abyss of the
" sky, thou didst form Hapi (the Nile), thou didst create the
" watery abyss, and thou dost give life unto all that therein is.
"Thou hast knit together the mountains, thou hast made mankind
" and the beasts of the field to come into being, thou hast made
"the heavens and the earth. Worshipped be thou whom Maat
" embraceth at morn and at eve. Thou dost travel across the sky
"with heart swelling with joy; the Lake of Testes becometh
" contented thereat. The serpent-fiend Nak hath fallen, and his
" two arms are cut off. The Sektet boat receiveth fair winds, and
" the heart of him that is in the shrine thereof rejoiceth. Thou art
" crowned prince of heaven, and thou art the One dowered [with
1 See my Chajpters of Coming Forth ly Day (Translation), pp. 8, 36.
336 HYMNS TO RA
" all attributes] who comest forth from the sky. Ra is he whose
" word when uttered must come to pass. 0 thou divine Youth,
" thou heir of everlastingness, thou self-begotten one, thou who
" didst give thyself birth 1 0 thou One, thou mighty [one] of
" myriad forms and aspects, King of the world, Prince of Annu
" (Heliopolis), lord of eternity and ruler of everlastingness, the
" company of the gods rejoice when thou rises t and when thou
"sailest across the sky, 0 thou who art exalted in the Sektet
"boat." (From the Papyrus of Hunefer, sheet 1.)
" Hail, thou Disk, thou lord of rays, who risest on the horizon
" day by day ! Homage to thee, 0 Heru-khuti, who art the god
" Khepera, the self-created ; when thou risest on the horizon and
" sheddest thy beams of light upon the lands of the North and
" of the South, thou art beautiful, yea beautiful, and all the gods
^' rejoice when they behold thee, the King of heaven. The goddess
" Nebt-unnut is stablished upon thy head ; and her uraei of the
'' South and of the North are upon thy brow ; she taketh up her
" place before thee. The god Thoth is stablished in the bows of
" thy boat to destroy utterly all thy foes. Those who are in the
" Tuat come forth to meet thee, and they bow in homage as they
" come towards thee to behold thy beautiful form. And I have
" come before thee that I may be with thee to behold thy Disk
' ' every day. May I not be shut up in [the tomb], may I not be
" turned back, may the members of my body be made new when I
" view thy beauties, even as [are those of] all thy favoured ones,
^' because I am one of those who worship j^ed thee upon earth. May
" I come in unto the land of eternity, may I come even unto the
" everlasting land, for behold, 0 my lord, this hast thou ordained
" for me.
" Homage to thee, 0 thou Avho risest in the horizon as Ra,
" thou restest upon law unchangeable and unalterable. Thou
"passest over the sky, and every face watcheth thee and thy
" course, for thou hast been hidden from their gaze. Thou dost
" show thyself at dawn and at eventide day by day. The Sektet
" boat, wherein is thy Majesty, goeth forth with light ; thy beams
" are upon all faces ; the [number] of thy red and yellow rays
" cannot be known, nor can thy bright beams be told. The lands
HYMN TO RA 337
" of the gods, and the lands of Punt must be seen, ere that which
" is hidden [in thee] may be measured. Alone and by thyself thou
" dost manifest thyself when thou comest into being above Nu.
" May I advance, even as thou dost advance ; may I never cease to
" go forward as thou never ceasest to go forward, even though it be
" for a moment ; for with strides thou dost in one little moment
" pass over the spaces which would need millions and millions of
" years [for men to pass over ; this] thou doest and then thou dost
" sink to rest. Thou puttest an end to the hours of the night, and
" thou dost count them, even thou ; thou endest them in thine
" own appointed season, and the earth becometh light. Thou
" settest thyself therefore before thy handiwork in the likeness of
" Ra [when] thou risest on the horizon.
" Thou art crowned with the majesty of thy beauties ; thou
" mouldest thy limbs as thou dost advance, and thou bringest them
" forth without birth-pangs in the form of Ra, as thou dost rise
" up into the upper air. Grant thou that I may come unto the
" heaven which is everlasting, and into the mountain where dwell
" thy favoured ones. May I be joined unto those shining beings,
" holy and perfect, who are in the Underworld ; and may I come
" forth with them to behold thy beauties when thou shinest at
" eventide and goest to thy mother Nu. Thou dost place thyself
" in the west, and my two hands are [raised] in adoration of thee
" when thou settest as a living being. Behold, thou art the
" maker of eternity, and thou art adored when thou settest in the
"heavens. I have given my heart unto thee without wavering,
" 0 thou who art mightier than the gods. A hymn of praise to
" thee, 0 thou who risest Uke unto gold, and who dost flood the
"world with light on the day of thy birth. Thy mother giveth
" thee birth, and thou dost give light unto the course of the Disk.
" 0 thou great Light, who shinest in the heavens, thou dost
" strengthen the generations of men with the Mle-flood, and thou
" dost cause gladness in all lands, and in all cities, and in all
"temples. Thou art glorious by reason of thy splendours, and
" thou makest strong thy Double with divine foods. 0 thou
" mighty one of victories, thou who art the Power of Powers, who
" dost make strong thy throne against evil fiends ; who art glorious
z
338 HYMN TO RA
" in majesty in the Sektet boat, and who art exceedingly mighty
" in the Atet boat, make thou me glorious through words which
"when spoken must take effect in the UnderAvorld; and grant thou
" that in the nether world I may be without evil. I pray thee to
" put my faults behind thee ; grant thou that I may be one of thy
" loyal servants who are with the shining ones ; may I be joined
"unto the souls which are in Ta-tchesertet, and may I journey
" into the Sekhet-Aaru by a prosperous and happy decree." (From
the Papyrus of Ani, sheet 20 f.)
" Homage to thee, 0 thou glorious being, thou who art
" dowered with all attributes, 0 Tem-Heru-khuti, when thou risest
" in the horizon of heaven, a cry of joy cometh forth to thee from
"the mouth of all peoples. 0 thou beautiful being, thou dost
" renew thyself in thy season in the form of the Disk within thy
" mother Hathor ; therefore in every place every heart swelleth
" with joy at thy rising for ever. The regions of the North and
" South come to thee with homage, and send forth acclamations at
" thy rising in the horizon of heaven ; thou illuminest the two
" lands with rays of turquoise light. 0 Ra, thou who art Heru-
"khuti, the divine man-child, the heir of eternity, self-begotten
" and self-born, king of earth, prince of the Tuat, governor of
" the regions of Aukert ; thou comest forth from the water, thou
" hast sprung from the god Nu, who cherisheth thee and ordereth
" thy members. 0 thou god of life, thou lord of love, all men live
"when thou shinest; thou art crowned king of the gods. The
" goddess Nut doeth homage unto thee, and Maat embraceth thee
"at all times. Those who are in thy following sing unto thee
" with joy and bow down their foreheads to the earth when they
" meet thee, thou lord of heaven, thou lord of earth, thou king of
" Right and Truth, thou lord of eternity, thou prince of ever-
" lastingness, thou sovereign of all the gods, thou god of life, thou
" creator of eternity, thou maker of heaven wherein thou art firmly
" established.
" The company of the gods rejoice at thy rising, the earth is
" o-lad when it beholdeth thy rays ; the peoples that have been
" long dead come forth with cries of joy to see thy beauties every
" day. Thou goest forth each day over heaven and earth and art
THE PRAISES OF RA 339
'made strong each day by thy mother Nut. Thou passest
' through the heights of heaven, thy heart swelleth with joy ; and
' the Lake of Testes is content thereat. The Serpent-fiend hath
' fallen, his arms are hewn off, the knife hath cut asunder his
'joints. Ra liveth by Maat the beautiful. The Sektet boat
' draweth on and cometh into port ; the South and the North, the
'West and the East turn to praise thee, 0 thou primeval
' substance of the earth who didst come into being of thine own
' accord. Isis and Nephthys salute thee, they sing unto thee
' songs of joy at thy rising in the boat, they protect thee with their
' hands. The souls of the East follow thee, the souls of the West
' praise thee. Thou art the ruler of all the gods, and thou hast
'joy of heart within thy shrine, for the serpent fiend Nak hath
'been condemned to the fire, and thy heart shall be joyful for
'ever." (From the Papyrus of NekJit, sheet 21.)
Even more instructive, however, than these are the Seventy-
five Praises of Ra which are found inscribed on the walls of royal
tombs of the XlXth and XXth Dynasties at Thebes. In these we
find enumerated a large number of most remarkable epithets and
attributes, some idea of the meaning of which will be gathered
from the following rendering : —
1. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem,^ lord of the hidden
" circles [of the Tuat], bringer of forms, thou restest in secret
" places and makest thy creations in the form of the god Tamt
" f c=^5i "^^ 3 , i.e., the universal god).
2. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, thou creative force
" (S <=> (][) {)? who spreadest out thy wings, who restest in
" the Tuat, who makest the created things which come forth
" from his divine limbs,
3. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Ta-thenen, begetter
" of his gods. Thou art he who protecteth what is in him, and
" thou makest thy creations as Governer of thy Circle.
4. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, looker on the
" earth, and brightener of Amenti. Thou art he whose forms
1 Literally, "Power."
340 THE PRAISES OF RA
v^ : i) are his own creations, and thou makest thy
" creations in thy Great Disk.
5. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the Word-soul,
" that resteth on his high place. Thou art he who pro-
" tecteth thy hidden spirits ("^s v^ ')' ^^^ they have form
" in thee.
6. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, mighty one, bold of
" face, the knitter together of his body. Thou art he who
" gathereth together thy gods when thou goest into thy hidden
" Circle.
7. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem. Thou dost call to
" thine Eye, and dost speak to thy head, and dost give breath
" to the souls in their places, and they receive it and have
'' their forms in him.
8. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, destroyer of thy
" enemies ; thou art he who doth decree destruction for the
9. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the sender forth
" of light into his Circle ; thou art he who maketh the
" darkness to be in his Circle and thou coverest those who are
" therein."
10. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the illuminer
" of bodies in the horizons ; thou art he who entereth into
" his Circle.
11. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, support ( M /\)
" of the Circles of Ament ; thou art indeed the body of Temu
12. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the hidden support
*'of Anpu ((1 ° '^^)i t^ou art indeed the body of
'' Khepera (^ <=> (| ^) .
13. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, whose duration of
" life is greater than that of her whose forms are hidden ;
" thou art indeed the bodies of Shu (nsz: ][ M\.
14. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the guide
THE PRAISES OF RA 341
" (r J h4 ^ ^^^^) ^-^ ^^ *^ ^^^ members ; thou art indeed the
" bodies of Tefnut (,^__ ^ ^) .
15. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou dost make
"to be abundant the things which are of Ra in their seasons,
" and thou art indeed Seb (^^ J r^) •
16. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the mighty one
" who doth keep count of the things which are in him ; thou
*' art indeed the bodies of Nut.
17. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the lord who
" advancest ; thou art indeed Isis ( j Jj j .
18. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, whose head
" shineth more than the things which are in front of him ;
" thou art indeed the bodies of Nephthys (TT '^ 3) .
19. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, united is he in
" members, One, who gathereth together all seed ; thou art
" indeed the bodies of Horus ( ^^ rjj) •
20. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, thou shining one
" who dost send forth light upon the waters of heaven ; thou
" art indeed the bodies of Nu ( Jj ) .
21. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the avenger of Nu
" who Cometh forth from what is in him ; thou art indeed the
" bodies of the god Remi (^^^f]f|^^).
22. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the two
" Uraei who bear their two feathers [on their heads]; thou art
" indeed the bodies of the god Huaaiti (| -f) '^'^ ^^ '^ V^)'
23. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou goest in
" and comest out and thou comest out and goest in to thy
" hidden Circle, and thou art indeed the bodies of Aatu
24. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the Soul who
" departeth at his appointed time ; thou art indeed the bodies
O ).
25. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, who standeth up,
342 THE PRAISES OF RA
" the Soul One, who avengeth his children ; thou art indeed
'' the bodies of Netuti (^ \ZA)'
26. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou raisest thy
" head and thou makest bold thy brow, thou ram, mightiest
" of created things.
27. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the light of Shu at
" the head of Akert (h "^ ) 5 thou art indeed the bodies
''of Ament (() ^^^ " ).
28. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, the soul that
" seeth, the governor of Ament ; thou art indeed the bodies
'' of the double Circle (^ ^ ^ ^ ).
29. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art
" the Soul that mourneth, and the god that crieth
" ^<=> ^^ ^ fjfl '^^^ ^)'^ ^^^^ ^^* indeed the bodies of
^ "Aakebi((j^^J(]^^|).
30. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou makest thy
" hand to pass and praisest thine Eye, and thou art indeed
"' the bodies of the god of hidden limbs (u ' | (?<?(? ^)-
31. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the Soul
" exalted in the double hidden place ( ^ ) : thou art
" indeed Khenti-Amenti (l^J = %,t^J)-
32. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, of manifold
" creations in the holy house ; thou art indeed the bodies of
" the god Kheprer (w '^^^ Jj).
33. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou placest
" thine enemies in their strong fetters, and thou art indeed the
" bodies of Mati (|()^^)-
34. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou givest forth
" light in the hidden place, and thou art the bodies of the god
" of generation ( '^^ nji r'=ifij|j.
35. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; thou art the
'' vivifier of bodies ; thou makest throats to inhale breath, and
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
THE PRAISES OF RA 348
thou art indeed the bodies of the god Tebati (cr^i^ ^ ^^^
Praise be to thee, 0 Ka, exalted Sekhem ; thou assemblest
bodies in the Tuat, and they gain the form of life, thou
destroyest foul humours, and thou art indeed the bodies of
thegodSerqi (^()(]y).
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Hidden-face
(STI)' S««l^«-N«tt«rt (^l^ng;); thou
art indeed the bodies of Shai (M^T '^ M ^ r^).
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, lord of might ;
thou embracest the Tuat and thou art indeed the bodies of
Sekhen-Ba ("i" il o^ "i^ J).
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou hidest thy
body in that which is within thee, and thou art indeed the
bodies of Amen-khat (f] " | "^ "^ ^ j ^ ) •
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, more strong of
heart than those who are in his following ; thou sendest fire
in the house of destruction, and thou art indeed the bodies
of the Fire-god Rekhi (^ I fjfj Q, ^)-
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou sendest forth
destruction, and thou makest beings to come into existence
in thy creations in the Tuat, and thou art the bodies of
Tuati L\^i)-
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Bua-tep ( J r^^^ -
W))' governor of his Eye; thou sendest forth light into
the hidden place, and thou art indeed the body of Shepi
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Temt-hatu,
stablisher of Amta (J\ -\U '" M) ; thou art indeed the bodies
of Temt-hatu (g||;^|).
Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, creator of hidden
344 THE PRAISES OF RA
" things, generator of bodies ; thou art indeed the bodies of
" the god Seshetai (m (]l) ^).
45. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou providest
" those Avho are in the Tuat with what they need in the
" hidden Circles, and thou art indeed Aper-ta (A ^_^ " 3j.
46. " Praise be to thee, 0 Pta, exalted Sekhem ; thy limbs rejoice
" when they see thy body, 0 Uash-Ba (-^ '^ ""^ ^ "i^ 3\
" when thou enterest thy body, and thou art indeed the bodies
"ofHaid^jlj).
47. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, aged one of the
"pupil (^2n|) °^ *^^ Utchat, Bai (^()()^); thou
" makest full thy splendour, and thou art indeed the bodies of
"Thenti (^;y).
48. " Praise be to thee, 0 Rfi, exalted Sekhem ; thou makest
•' straight ways in the Tuat, and openest up roads in the
" hidden place, and thou art indeed the bodies of Maa-uat
49. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the Soul
" who mo vest onwards, and thou hastenest thy steps, and
" thou art indeed the bodies of Akhpa (u n 4 'f^)*
50. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou sendest
" forth thy stars and thou ilium inest the darkness in the
" Circles of those whose forms are hidden, and thou art indeed
" the god Hetchiu (|\\^^)-
51. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; thou art the
" maker of the Circles, thou makest bodies to come into being
" by thine own creative vigour. Thou, 0 Ra, hast created
" the things which exist, and the things which do not exist,
"the dead ( n, and the gods, and the spirits; thou art
" indeed the body that maketh Khati ("^ ^^ v^) ^^ come
" into being.
THE PRAISES OF RA 345
52. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the
"doubly hidden and secret god (™|® fj"']']^)' and
" the souls go where thou leadest them, and those who follow
" thee thou makest to enter in ; thou art indeed the bodies of
53. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art Uben-
"An (^ J'XX^I^) ^^ Ament, and the light of the
" lock of hair on thee . . . . ; thou art indeed the bodies of
" the god Uben.
54. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the
" Aged One of forms who dost go about through the Tuat, to
" whom the souls in their Circles ascribe praises ; and thou
" art indeed the bodies of Then-aru (aa^ -c2>- "^ In i rv) )•
55. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; when thou dost
" unite thyself to the Beautiful Ament, the gods of the Tuat
" rejoice at the sight of thee ; thou art indeed the bodies of
"Aai(l)_.J£j).
56. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; thou art the
" Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words,
" and the president of the sovereign chiefs (or, assessors), and
" the governor of the holy Circle ; thou art indeed the bodies
" of the Great Cat (| tj ^ |^ ^ |)-
57. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; when thou fillest
" thine eye, and speakest to the pupil thereof, the divine dead
" bodies shed tears ; thou art indeed the bodies of Metu-
"khut-f(l^l^^^l).
58. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the Soul
" on high and thy bodies are hidden ; thou sendest forth the
" light, and thou lookest upon thy hidden things (or, places) ;
" thou art indeed the bodies of Her-ba (| "^ S^ ^ "J^" J).
59. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, exalted of
"Soul; thou destroyest thine enemies, thou sendest fire on
" the wicked, and thou art the bodies of Qa-Ba (^T^'^^'r^)-
346 THE PRAISES OF RA
60. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Auaiu
(l\ "vx '^^ M ^J\), who hidest in purity ; thou hast gained
the mastery over the souls of the gods, and thou art indeed
the bodies of Auai.
61. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Oldest one
(^^ %:^ Jj V Great one, Governor of the Tuat, Creating
one (©<=>(](]; 3)', thou didst create the two Setchet
C'^ ^ ^pl 3Y and thou art indeed the bodies of the two
Setchet gods (^ 2^ |)^ I).
62. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem, Mighty One of
journey ings ; thou orderest thy steps by Maat, thou art the
Soul that doeth good to the body, thou art Senk-hra
/^^ Q "^ {q^^ Face of Light), and thou art indeed the
\V X6 1
bodies of Senk-hra.
63. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou dost protect
(or, avenge) thy body, and thou dost hold the balance
[among] the gods as the hidden Ama (^"^ ^= (j ^), [and]
as Am-ta ([] - - ""' ^), and thou art indeed the bodies of
the double god Ama-Amta ("^ ^=z (j ^ (j _ _ =^ ^).
64. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the lord
of the fetters of thine enemies, the One, the Prince of the
Apes ( ^ "^^^ ')' ^^^ *^^^ ^^* indeed the bodies of
Antetu(|]^^).
65. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou sendest
forth flames into thy furnaces (^^ \ ^^ ^^ |)' ^^^ *^^^
cuttest off the heads of those who are to be destroyed
(§ ci r| ^jnur (]() % ^^ '^ ')' ^^^ *^^^ ^^'* indeed the bodies
of the two gods Ketuit (^ ^ ^1 ^ ^)-
66. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the
god of generation ( y>^ QQ ''^^^ ^)' t^c>^ destroyest [thy]
offspring, thou art One, thou stablishest the two lands by
THE PRAISES OF RA 347
" [thy] spirit ("^^^ "^ "^ ' ' )' ^^^ ^^*^^ ^^^ indeed the bodies
" of the god Ta-Thenen (^ s=5 ;|.I|. ^).
67. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou stablishest
" the gods who watch the hours (^ oa []() ^ ^ 1) on their
" standards, and who are invisible and secret, and thou art
" indeed the bodies of the Watcher gods (^g no (]() ,„ ^)-
Q8. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; thou art the
"double Tchent god (^^ ^^) ^^ heaven, and the gate of
"the Tuat, and the god Besi (J P f]!) ^S=^ ^) [wi*^ ^^^
" spiritual bodies (^ | 8 "^ || ')' ^^^ *^^^ ^^^* *^^^ bodies
" of Besi. "
69. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; . thou art the
"Apes (II °M1 I) , and thou art the true creative
"Power of [thy] divine attributes (-=^=^ I]l) ^Jfl^ |)' ^^^
" thou art indeed the bodies of the Ape-god in the Tuat.
70. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou makest new
" the earth, and thou openest a way for that which is therein,
" thou that art the Soul which giveth names unto his limbs,
" and thou art indeed the bodies of Sma-ta ( l, ^^ - 9^)-
71. "Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem; thou art Nehi
" (a^.wna T\ I flfl fl jj) who burnest up thine enemies, the Fire-
"god Setcheti h^ ^fl 3\ who burneth up fetters, and
" thou art indeed the bodies of Nehi ('wwvn A § (]f] ^ ^)-
72. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the god
"of mation (cy =^), the god of light ('^®^^),
" who travelleth, thou makest the darkness to come into
" being after thy light, and thou art indeed the bodies of
" Shemti.
73. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the lord
(n n yNAAAAA \
J /WW^A J j,
" thou art the chief of the gods who are supreme in their
348 THE PRAISES OF RA
'districts H r^ i rfTK ^ "^s "--^ ^ ')' ^^^ *^^^ ^^* indeed
' the god Neb-baiu (^37 ^^ ' ' w)> i-^-' Lord of souls).
74. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the
" double Sphinx-god, the Double obelisk-god (? ^ 1)1] , , S
" J AAAAAA I AA/w^A (] (] ^ 3V HiB Great God who lifteth up his
two Eyes, and thou art indeed the bodies of the double
Sphinx god Huiti (I^H^y).
75. " Praise be to thee, 0 Ra, exalted Sekhem ; thou art the lord
" of light and declarest the things which are hidden, and thou
" art the Soul that speaketh with the gods who are in their
Circles, and thou art indeed the bodies of Neb-Senku
(r,:;^-^ AAA^ y ^ ^' ^•^•' *^^® Lord of light)." ^
An impartial examination of the above translation will show
the reader the lofty conceptions which Avere associated by the
Egyptians with Ra the Sun-god, and there is not room for any
reasonable doubt that they ascribed to the god, whose symbol was
the sun, all the attributes which modern nations are wont to
regard as the properties peculiar to God Almighty. He was One,
and the maker of " gods " and men ; he was the creator of heaven,
earth, and the underworld ; he was self-begotten, self-created, and
self-produced ; he had existed for ever and would exist to all
eternity ; he was the source of all life and light ; and he was the
personification of right and truth, and goodness, and the destroyer
of darkness, night, wickedness, and evil. There is scarcely an
attribute of importance ascribed to our God for which there is no
equivalent in the hymns and texts which relate to Ra and describe
his greatness and power, for he was not only the god of the living
but also the god of the dead, and the god of everything unborn.
His relations with Osiris, who was part god and part man, and was
the cause and type of immortality for man, were at once those of a
god, a father, and an equal, and when we consider that Osiris was
a king who reigned over Egypt, and that every king was an
1 For the hieroglyphic texts from the tombs of Seti I., Seti II., and Rameses IV.,
and a French translation, see Naville, La Litanie da Soleil, Leipzig, 1875.
TEM OF HELIOPOLIS 349
incarnation of Ra, it is easy to understand how he came to have
the power to rise from the dead, and to act as the judge of the
dead on behalf of his father Ra.
Tem, or Temu, ^^, ^^^^^ «r Atem, ^ ^^
Tem, or Temu, or Atem, was originally the local god of the
city of Annu, or Heliopolis, and in the dynastic period at all events
he was held to be one of the forms of the great Sun-god Ra, and to
be the personification of the setting sun. In the predynastic
period, however, he was, as M. Lefebure has pointed out,^ the first
man among the Egyptians who was believed to have become
divine, and who was at his death identified with the setting sun ;
in other words, Tem was the first living man-god known to the
Egyptians, just as Osiris was the first dead man-god, and as such
was always represented in human form and with a human head.
It is important to note this fact, for it indicates that those who
formulated the existence of this god were on a higher level of
civilization than those who depicted the oldest of all Egyptian
gods, Horus, in the form of a hawk, or in that of a hawk-headed
human body. In the papyri and on the monuments he usually
wears 'U, the crowns of the South and North, upon his head, and he
holds -9- , the emblem of life, in his right hand, and the sceptre, j[ ,
in his left. In the boat of Ra he is depicted in human form even
when Ra is symbolized by a disk which is being rolled along by a
beetle, and the god Khepera is represented by a beetle, and the
rising sun Heru-Khuti is shown under the form of a hawk's head,
from which fall rays of light.^ Tem was, in fact, to the Egyptians
a manifestation of God in human form, and his conception in their
minds marks the end of the period wherein they assigned animal
forms to their gods, and the beginning of that in which they
evolved the idea of God, almighty, inscrutable, unknowable, the
maker and creator of the universe. It is useless to attempt to
assign a date to the period when the Egyptians began to worship
1 Trans. Soc. libl, Arclu, ix., p. 175. " Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 398.
350 TEM OF HELIOPOLIS
God in human form, for we have no material for doing so ; the
worship of Tern must, however, be of very great antiquity, and the
fact that the priests of Ra in the Vth and Vlth Dynasties united
him to their god under the name of Ra-Tem, O "^^ , proves that
his worship was wide-spread, and that the god was thought to
possess attributes similar to those of Ra.
The Pyramid Texts show that the attributes of Temu were
confounded with those of Ra, and that the protection and favour
of this god were all essential for the well-being of the deceased in
the Underworld ; indeed, it is Tem the father who stretches out
his hand to Pepi I. and sets him at the head of the gods, where he
judges the great and the wise.^ This passage shows that Tem was
regarded as the father of the human race, and as he was also
divine his powers to help the dead were very great. In many
respects he was held to be the equal of Ra, and the prayers and
hymns which were addressed to him frequently show that the
Egyptians were very anxious to propitiate him. This is not
difficult to understand if we remember the dogmas of the
Heliopolitan priesthood about the means by which the souls of the
blessed departed from this world. They taught that souls when
they left this world went to the region which lay between the
earth and the beginning of the Valley of the Tuat, and which was
called Amentet, and that they waited there until the Boat of the
Setting Sun, i.e., the boat of Ra in his form of Temu, made his
appearance there ; as soon as it arrived the souls flocked to it, and
those who had served Ra upon earth and whose bodies had been
buried with the orthodox rites, and ceremonies, and prayers of the
priesthood of Ra, and were, therefore, provided with the necessary
words of power, were admitted to the boat of Tem, where they
enjoyed the protection and favour of the god in his various forms
to all eternity.
There was, moreover, another aspect of Tem which gave the
god a position of peculiar importance in the minds of the Egyptians,
RA-TEM OF HELIOPOLIS 351
i.e., he was identified not only with the god of the dead, Osiris, but
also with the young Horus, the new and rising sun of the morrow.
All these ideas are well expressed in a hymn to Tern which is found
in the Papyrus of Mut-lietep (Brit. Mus., No. 10,010, sheet 5), and
which was composed to enable every spirit who recited it to " come
forth by day " and in any form he pleased and to have great power
in the Tuat. The lady Mut-hetep says, " 0 Ra-Tem, in thy
" splendid progress thou risest, and thou settest as a living being
" in the glories of the western horizon ; thou settest in thy
"territory which is in the Mount of Sunset (Manu, ,^<^ r^-^^).
" Thy uraeus is behind thee, thy uraeus is behind thee. Homage
" to thee, 0 thou who art in peace ; homage to thee, 0 thou who
" art in peace. Thou art joined unto the Eye of Tem, and it
" chooseth its powers of protection [to place] behind thy members.
" Thou goest forth through heaven, thou travellest over the earth,
" and thou jonrneyest onward. 0 Luminary, the northern and
" southern halves of heaven come to thee, and they bow low in
" adoration, and they do homage unto thee, day by day. The
" gods of Amentet rejoice in thy beauties, and the unseen places
" sing hymns of praise unto thee. Those who dwell in the Sektet
" boat go round about thee, and the Souls of the East do homage
" to thee, and when they meet thy Majesty they cry : ' Come,
" come in peace ! ' There is a shout of welcome to thee, 0 lord
" of heaven and governor of Amentet ! Thou art acknowledged
" by Isis who seeth her son in thee, the lord of fear, the mighty
" one of terror. Thou settest as a living being in the hidden
" place. Thy father [Ta-]tunen raiseth thee up and he placeth
" both his hands behind thee ; thou becomest endowed with divine
" attributes in [thy] members of earth ; thou wakest in peace and
" thou settest in Manu. Grant thou that I may become a being
" honoured before Osiris, and that I may come to thee, 0 Ra-Tem !
" I have adored thee, therefore do thou for me that which I wish.
" Grant thou that I may be victorious in the presence of the
" company of the gods. Thou art beautiful, 0 Ra, in thy western
" horizon of Amentet, thou lord of Maat, thou being who art
" greatly feared, and whose attributes are majestic, 0 thou who art
" greatly beloved by those who dwell in the Tuat ! Thou shinest
352 KHEPERA-RA-TEMU
" with thy beams upon the beings that are therein perpetually,
" and thou sendest forth thy light upon the ]Dath of Re-stau.
" Thou openest up the path of the double Lion-god, thou settest
" the gods upon [their] thrones, and the spirits in their abiding-
'' places. The heart of Naarerf (i.e., An-rut-f, a region of the
*' Underworld) is glad [when] Ril setteth ; the heart of Naarerf is
" glad when Ra setteth. Hail, 0 ye gods of the land of Amentet
" who make offerings and oblations unto Ra-Tem, ascribe ye glory
" [unto him when] ye meet him. Grasp ye your weapons and
" overthrow ye the fiend Seba on behalf of Rii, and repulse the
" fiend Nebt on behalf of Osiris. The gods of the land of Amentet
" rejoice and lay hold upon the cords of the Sektet boat, and they
" come in peace ; the gods of the hidden place who dwell in
" x4.mentet triumph." In the opening words of another hymn Tem
is addressed as " Ra, who in thy setting art Tem-Heru-khuti
" (Tem-Harmachis), thou divine god, thou self-created being, thou
" primeval matter," ^ from which we see that the attributes of self-
creation, etc., which, strictly speaking, belonged to Khepera,
were ascribed to Tem.
In the Myth of Ra and Isis Ra is made to say, " I am Khepera
" in the morning, and Ra at noonday, and Temu in the evening." ^
From which we may understand that the day and the night were
divided into three parts, each of which was presided over by one
of the three forms of Ra here mentioned. In the time of the
Middle Empire Tem is often mentioned with Heru-khuti, Ra, and
Khepera, and the priests of Heliopolis always attempted to prove
that he was the ancestor of all the other forms of the Sun-god.
In the Book of the Dead (xvii. 5 ff.) the deceased is made to
identify himself with Tem as the oldest of the gods, and he says,
" I am Tem in rising ; I am the only One ; I came into being in
" Nu. I am Ra who rose in the beginning." The statement is
followed by the question, " Who then is this ? " and the answer is,
1 Naville, Todtenbuch, Bd. i., pi. 19.
' o V^QflflJIi. *^^®ooJI\ -|j®® "
i
^ ^ gO Ojjj ^-fj^ ^ ¥^ e
SHRINES OF TEM 353
"It is Ra when at the beginning he rose in the city of Suten-
" lienen, crowned like a king in rising. The pillars of Shu were
" not as yet created when he was upon the high ground of him
" that dwelleth in Khemennu" (i.e., Thoth). Thus it is clear that
the Heliopolitans made out that it was Tem who was the first
god to exist in primeval matter, and they consistently coupled
him with Harmachis, ^ ^ ^ 5^ ^i^,l^||, and with
Khepera, W <=> [1 Jf , as forms of the rising sun ; on the other
hand, they often, with fine inconsistency, identified him with the
setting sun, and made the wind of evening, which gave refreshment
to mortals and breath to the dead, to go forth from him.
It is difficult to say definitely where the original shrine of
Tem was situated, but it appears to have been in the Eighth
Nome of Lower Egypt/ v^, Nefer Abt, the Heroopolites of
II Ml ^ o s ^Ti
the Greeks), at the place which is called both Thuket, ^ , and
Pa-Atemt, [ ^ ^ , and it is described as the " gate of the
East." Under the form " Pithom " the sacred name of the city
Pa-Atemt is familiar to all from the Bible. The site of Pa-Atemt or
Pithom was long thought to be buried beneath the ruins called by the
Arabs Tell al-Maskhutah/ which are situated close to the modern
village of Tell el-Kebir, and the excavations made on the spot by
M. Naville prove that this view is correct. The inscriptions prove
beyond all doubt that the great god of Pithom was Tem, and from
the allusions which are made in them to the " Holy serpent "
therein, and from the fact that one part of the temple buildings was
called Pa-Qerhet,2 ^^^ <^ i ^ B\ ^ ' ^^' Ast-qerhet, j] <f> f |% ,
that is, "the house of the snake-god Qerliet," it is tolerably
certain that one of the forms under which Tem was worshipped
was a huge serpent. A town situated as Pithom was on the large
canal joining the Red Sea and the Nile, and on the highway from
Arabia to Heliopolis must have contained a very mixed population,
which would include a number of merchants and others from Western
Asia. These probably brought in with them a number of strange
1 <iL^^-~^\ Jy. 2 This is the Pi-hahiroth of the Bible.
A a
354 lUSAASET AND NEBT-HETEP
practices connected with the worship of their own gods, which
having been adopted by the indigenous peoples in the district
modified their worship. From a passage in the Pyramid Texts
already quoted it seems that the original form of the worship of
Tem was phallic in character, but if it was nothing is known
about it ; some scholars have regarded obelisks as phallic emblems,
and have pointed to their earliest forms, in which their tops were
surmounted by disks, in proof of the correctness of their view.
Attached to the god Tem were two female counterparts
called respectively Iusaaset, -^ '^i^ T Pn ' ^^^ Nebt-Hetep,
'^Vrs, and they formed members of the company of the
gods of Heliopolis, being mentioned with Tem, lord of the two
lands of Annu, Ra, and Heru-khuti.^ Iusaaset, the ^awcrt? of
Plutarch, is called the ''mistress of Annu," and the " Eye of Ra,"
"^^^^ , and she is reo-arded as the mother, and wife, and dauo-hter
of Tem according to the requirements of the texts ; ^ as the wife of
Tem she is said to be the mother of Shu and Tefnut. She is
depicted ^ in the form of a woman who holds the sceptre, j , in her
right hand, and " life," •¥-, in her left ; on her head she wears the
vulture head-dress surmounted by a uraeus, and a disk between a
pair of horns. In this form she is called the " mistress of Annu,"
2, and was the wife of Tem-Heru-khuti. The
goddess Nebt-lietep appears to have been nothing but a form of
Iusaaset, for in the scene in which she is represented in the
form of a cow she is called " mistress of the gods, lusaaset-Nebt-
hetep."
According to Brugsch ^ Tem was joined to the god Osiris
under the phase Tem-Asar, and formed with Hathor of Annu, or
Ant, AAAAAA AAAAAA ^ aud H cru- sma'taul, wv x •> the head
of the triad of Heroopolis. As local forms of the god Tem-Ra
he enumerates Khnemu in Elephantine, Khnemu-Heru-shefit in
Heracleopolis Magna, and Khnemu-Ba-neb-Tettet in Mendes.
^ Great Harris Papyrus, sheet i., line 4. ~ Brugsch, Religion, p. 284.
•^ Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 51. * Op. cit., p. 290.
KHEPERA 355
Khepera Q <i=> (1 3 .
The third form of Ra, the Sun-god, was Khepera kheper-
TCHESEF, fi <cz> 1] cfj ^ <=> -i^ , i.e., Khepera the self-produced,
whose type and symbol was a beetle ; he is usually represented in
human form with a beetle upon the head, but sometimes a beetle
takes the place of the i human head. In one scene figured by
Lanzone he is represented seated on the ground, and from his
knees projects the head of the hawk of Horus, which is surmounted
by -r, " life." ^ In the section which treats of the Creation we
have already translated and discussed the text which tells how
the Sun-god Ra came into being under the form of Khepera
from out of the primeval watery mass of Nu, and how by
means of his soul, which lived therein with him, he made a
place whereon to stand, and straightway created the gods Shu
and Tefnut, from whom proceeded the other gods. The worship
of the beetle was, however, far older than that of Ra in Egypt,
and it is pretty certain that the identification of Ra with the
beetle-god is only another example of the means adopted by the
priests, who grafted new religious opinions and beliefs upon old
ones. The worship of the beetle, or at all events, the reverence
which was paid to it, was spread over the whole country, and the
ideas which were associated with it maintained their hold upon
the dynastic Egyptians, and some of them appear to survive among
the modern inhabitants of the Nile valley. The particular beetle
which the Egyptians introduced into their mythology belongs
to the family called Scarabseidae (Coprophagi), of which the
Scarahaeus sacer is the type. These insects compose a very
numerous group of dung-feeding Lamellicorns, of which, however,
the majority live in tropical countries ; they are usually black,
but many are adorned with bright, metallic colours. They fly
during the hottest hours of the day, and it was undoubtedly this
peculiarity which caused the primitive Egyptians to associate
them with the sun. Thus as far back as the Ylth Dynasty the
dead king Pepi is said "to fly like a bird, and to alight like a
1 Lanzone, op. cit,, pi. 329.
356 KHEPERA
" beetle upon the empty throne in the boat of Ra." ^ According
to Latreille ^ it was the species of a fine green colour [Ateuclius
Aegy])tioTum) which was first identified with the sun. The insect
lays a vast numbers of eggs in a mass of dung, which it proceeds to
push about with its legs until it gradually assumes the form of a
ball, and then rolls it along to a hole which it has previously dug.
A ball of dung containing eggs varies in size from one to two
inches in diameter, and in rolling it along the beetle stands almost
upon its head, with its head turned away from the ball ; in due
course the larvae are hatched by the heat of the sun's rays beating
down into the hole wherein it has been placed by the beetle, and
they feed upon the covering of dung which protected them. The
mind of the primitive Egyptian associated the ball of the beetle
containing potential germs of life with the ball of the sun, which
seemed to be rolled across the sky daily, and which was the source
of all life. The beetle shows great perseverance in conveying the
egg-laden balls of dung to the holes in which the larvae are to be
hatched, and they frequently carry them over rough ground on
the broad, flat surface of their heads, and seek, when unable singly
to complete the work, the assistance of their fellows. It is this
habit of the beetle which is represented in mythological scenes
where we see the disk or ball of the sun on the head of the beetle,
O
^. A curious view was held by the ancient writers Aelian,^
Porphyry,^ and Horapollo ^ to the eff*ect that beetles were all males
(Kdvdapo^ ya? 77as appiqv), and that as there were no females among
them, the males were, like the Sun-god Ra, self-produced. This
erroneous idea probably sprang up because the male and female
scarabaeus are very much alike, and because both sexes appear to
divide the care of the preservation of their offspring equally
between them, but in any case, it is a very ancient one, for in the
Egyptian story of the Creation the god, whose type and symbol
i
z:^ O (Unds, 1. 477).
2 Cailliaud, Voyage, torn, ii., p. 311. ^ J)q j^at. Animal., x. 15.
4 Be Abstinentia, iv. 9. ^ Ed. Leemans, p. 11.
THE FATHER OF THE GODS 357
was a beetle, not only produced himself, but also begot, conceived,
and brought forth tAvo deities, one male (Shu), and the other
female (Tefnut).
In the Egyptian texts Khepera is called the " father of the
gods," "^ 111 7 ^^^^ i^ *^® Booh of the Dead (xvii. 116) the
deceased addresses him, saying, " Hail, Khepera in thy boat, the
" double company of the gods is thy body," but the form of the
Sun-god with which he is most closely allied is that of Heru-khuti,
or Harmachis. In the Booh of the Dead Khepera plays a
prominent part in connection with Osiris ; he is called the
"creator of the gods" (Ani, 1, 2); " Heru-khuti-Temu-Heru-
Khepera " (Qenna, 2, 15), and whatever forms he takes, or has
taken, the deceased claims the right to take also. Moreover, the
god Khepera becomes in a manner a type of the dead body, that is
to say, he represents matter containing a living germ which is
about to pass from a state of inertness into one of active life. As
he was a living germ in the abyss of Nu, and made himself to
emerge therefrom in the form of the rising sun, so the germ of the
living soul, which existed in the dead body of man, and was to
burst into a new life in a new world by means of the prayers
recited during the performance of appropriate ceremonies, emerged
from its old body in a new form either in the realm of Osiris or in
the boat of Ra. This doctrine was symbolized by the germs of
life rolled up in the egg-ball of the beetle, and the power which
made those to become living creatures was that which made man's
spiritual body to come into being, and was personified in the god
Khepera. Thus Khepera symbolized the resurrection of the body,
and it was this idea which was at the root of the Egyptian custom
of wearing figures of the beetle, and of placing them in the tombs
and on the bodies of the dead ; the myriads of scarabs which have
been found in all parts of Egypt testify to the universality of this
custom. As to its great antiquity there is no doubt whatsoever,
for the scarab was associated with burial as far back as the period
of the IVth D5masty. Thus in the Papyrus of Nu (Brit. Mus.,
No. 10,477, sheet 21) we are told in the Rubric that Chapter
Ixiv. of the Booh of the Dead was found inscribed in letters of
358 KHEPERA AND THE HEART
real lapis-lazuli inlaid in a block " of iron of the south " under the
feet of the god (i.e., Thoth), during the reign of Men-kau-Ra
(Mycerinus), by the prince Heru-ta-ta-f in the city of Khemennu.
At the end of the second paragraph this Chapter is ordered to
be recited by a man " who is ceremonially clean and pure, who
" hath not eaten the flesh of animals or fish, and who hath not had
" intercourse with women." Tiie text continues, " And behold,
"thou shalt make a scarab of green stone, with a rim of gold, and
" this shall be placed in the heart of a man, and it shall perform
" for him the ' Opening of the Mouth.' And thou shalt anoint it
" with cinti unguent, and thou shalt recite over it the following
"words of power." The "words of power" which follow this
direction form Chapter xxx b. of the Book of the Dead, wherein
the deceased addresses the scarab as " my heart, my mother ; my
" heart, my mother ! My heart whereby I came into being." He
then prays that it will not depart from him when he stands in the
presence of the " guardian " of the Balance wherein his heart is to
be weighed, and that none may come forward in the judgment to
oppose him, or to give false or unfavourable evidence against him,
or to " make his name to stink." Curiously enough he calls the
scarab " his double " (ka). Another Rubric makes the Ixivth
Chapter as old as the time of Hesepti (Semti), the fifth king of the
1st Dynasty, and the custom of burying green basalt scarabs inside
or on the breasts of the dead may well be as old as his reign. Be
this as it may, scarabs were worn by the living as protective
amulets, and as symbols of triumjohant acquittal in the Judgment
Hall of Osiris, and as emblems of the resurrection which was to be
effected by the power of the god Khepera whom they represented,
and the words of power of Chapter xxx b made them to act the
part of the Jca or double for the dead on the day of the " weighing
of words " before Osiris, and his officers, and his sovereign chiefs,
and Thoth the scribe of the gods, and the two companies of the
gods. If scarabs were placed under the coffin no fiend could harm
it, and their presence in a tomb gave to it the protection of the
" father of the gods."
( 359 )
CHAPTER X
THE MYTHS OF RA
IN the preceding pages it has been shown how among theologians
and thoughtful Egyptians Ra was regarded as God, but
among certain classes, that is to say magicians, and astrologers,
and soothsayers, quite other views were held about his nature and
attributes. It will be remembered that among such men in ancient
times it was customary to prescribe as antidotes to poison and
sicknesses the recital or wearing of certain magical texts ; the
power of such texts was thought to be very great, especially if it
contained a narrative of how some god or divine being had been
delivered by the power of a great being from death by poison or
by a sickness caused by poison. We may note in passing that
such beliefs were not confined to the Egyptians, and that we find
exactly the same ideas existent in Babylonia and Assyria ; this is
illustrated by the following interesting extract from a Babylonian
tablet recently published by Mr. R. Campbell Thompson.^ The
text reads : — " From Anu [came the heavens], the heavens created
[the earth], the earth created the rivers, the rivers created the
canals, the canals created the marshes, and the marshes created
the Worm. Then came the Worm before Shamash, the Sun-god,
weeping, and before Ea came up her tearful plaint, [saying],
' What wilt thou give me to eat ? What wilt thou give me to
gnaw?' [The gods said], 'I will give thee dry bones [to eat],
' and the pungent hhashJchar wood.' [The Worm said], ' What
' are thy dry bones to me ? Or, what is thy JchashJchar wood to
me? Let me drink among the teeth [of men], and give me
my place in [their] gums, that I may suck the blood of the teeth^
^ Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, part xvii., pi. 50; and see E. C,
Thom-pson, The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, vol. i., Introduction, attlieend.
i. i
360 RA AND ISIS
" * and that I may tear asunder the flesh of the gums. In this wise
" ' I shall have power over the bolt of the door ' (i.e., the mouth of a
" man). Therefore, 0 sick man, shaltthou say the following words,
" ' 0 Worm, may Ea smite thee with all his might.' " Following
these words come the rubrical directions which order the patient to
mix together a prescription compounded of beer, oil, and the juice
of a certain plant, and when the incantation has been recited over
the man with the toothache three times, the mixture is to be rubbed
on the tooth. In the one case the object of the narrative was to cure
the man who had been bitten by a venomous serpent, and in the
other to ease the pain in the teeth and the inflammation of the
gums which were supposed to be caused by a worm, a descendant
of the original Worm which claimed before Ea the right to make
teeth decay and to suck the blood of the gums.
The Egyptian texts which were written for magical purposes
have preserved for us some very curious and interesting myths of Ra,
and among these may be quoted the following story about him and
the goddess Isis.^ The title reads : — " The Chapter of the divine
" god, the self-created being, who made the heavens and the earth,
" and the winds which give life, and the fire, and the gods, and men,
" and beasts, and cattle, and reptiles, and the fowl of the air, and the
" fish of the sea ; he is the king of men and of gods, he hath but
" one period to his life, and with him a double hen period (i.e., one
" hundred and twenty years) is as a single year ; his names are
" manifold and unknown, the gods even know them not." The
story runs : — " Now Isis was a woman who possessed words of
" power ; her heart was wearied with the millions of men, there-
" fore she chose the millions of the gods, but she esteemed more
'' highly the millions of the spirits. And she meditated in her
" heart, saying, ' Cannot I by means of the sacred name of God
" ' make myself mistress of the earth and become a goddess of like
" ' rank and power to Ra, in heaven and upon earth ? ' And
1 The hieratic text will be found in Pleyte and Rossi, Ze Papy7-us de Turin,
1869-1876; pll. 31-37, and 131-138; and a transcript into hieroglyphics with a
transliteration and translation in my First Steps in Egyptian, 1895, pp. 241-256.
A French translation by Lefebure was published in Aeg. Zeit.^ 1883, pp. 27 ff. ; and
for English renderings see my Papijriis of Ani, 1895, p. Ixxxix., and Egyptian
Magic, p. 137.
RA IS POISONED 361
" behold, each day Ra entered at the head of his holy mariners
" and established himself upon the throne of the two horizons ;
" but the divine one (i.e., Ra) had grown old, he dribbled at the
" mouth, his spittle fell upon the earth, and his slobbering dropped
" upon the ground. And Isis kneaded [some] thereof with earth
" in her hand, and formed therewith a sacred serpent in the form
*' of a dart ; she did not set it upright before her face, but let it
" lie upon the ground in the path whereby the great god went
" forth, according to his heart's desire, into his double kingdom.
" Now the holy god arose, and the gods who followed him as
"though he were Pharaoh went with him; and he came forth
" according to his daily wont ; and the sacred serpent bit him.
" The flame of his life departed from him ; and he who dwelt
" among the cedars was overcome. The holy god opened his
" mouth, and the cry of his majesty reached unto heaven ; his
"company of the gods said, *What hath happened?' and his
" gods exclaimed, " What is it ? ' But Ra could not answer, for
" his jaws trembled and all his members quaked, the poison spread
" swiftly through his flesh just as Nile rusheth through all his
" land. When the great god had stablished his heart, he cried
" unto those who were in his train, saying, ' Come unto me, 0 ye
" ' who have come into being from my body, ye gods who have
" ' come forth from me, make ye known unto Khepera that a dire
" ' calamity hath fallen upon me. My heart perceiveth it, but my
" ' eyes see it not ; my hand hath not caused it, nor do I know
" ' who hath done this unto me. Never have I felt such pain,
" ' neither can sickness cause more woe than this. I am a prince,
" ' the son of a prince, the sacred essence which hath proceeded
" * from God. I am the great one, the son of the great one, and
" ' my father planned my name ; I have multitudes of names, and
" ' multitudes of forms, and my being is in every god. I have
" ' been proclaimed by the heralds Temu and Horus; and my father
" ' and my mother uttered my name ; but it hath been hidden
" ' within me by him that begat me, who would not that the words
" * of power of any seer should have dominion over me. I came
" ' forth to look upon that which I had made, I was passing through
'' ' the world which I had created, when lo ! something stung me,
362 THE HOLY NAME OF RA
' but what I know not. Is it fire ? Is it water ? My heart is
' on fire, my flesh quaketh, and trembling hath seized all my
* limbs. Let there be brought unto me my children, the gods
' who possess the words of power and magical speech, and mouths
' which know how to utter them, and also powers which reach
' even unto the heaven.'
" Then the children of every god came unto him uttering
cries of grief. And Isis also came, bringing with her her words of
magical power, and her mouth was full of the breath of life ; for
her talismans vanquish the pains of sickness, and her words make
to live again the throats of those who are dead. And she spake,
saying, ' What hath come to pass, 0 holy Father ? What hath
happened? Is it that a serpent hath bitten thee, and that a
thing which thou hast created hath lifted up his head against
thee ? Verily it shall be cast down by my effective words of
power, and I will drive it away from before the sight of thy
sunbeams.' The holy god opened his mouth and said, ' I was
passing along my path, and I was going through the two
regions of my lands according to my heart's desire, to see that
which I had created, when lo ! I was bitten by a serpent which
I saw not. Is it fire ? Is it water ? I am colder than water,
I am hotter than fire. All my flesh sweateth, I quake, mine
eye hath no strength, I cannot see the sky, and the sweat
rusheth to my face even as in the time of summer.' Then said
Isis unto Ra, ' 0 tell me thy name, holy Father, for whosoever
shall be delivered by thy name shall live.' And Ra said, ' I
have made the heavens and the earth, I have knit together
the mountains, I have created all that is above them, I have
made the water, I have made to come into being the goddess
Meht-urt, and I have made the Bull of his mother, from whom
spring the delights of love, I have made the heavens, I have
stretched out the two horizons like a curtain, and I have placed
the souls of the gods within them. I am he who, if he openeth
his eyes, doth make the light, and, if he closeth them, darkness
Cometh into being. At his command the Nile riseth, and the
gods know not his name. I have made the hours, I have
created the days, I bring forward the festivals of the year, I
ISIS THE ENCHANTRESS 363
' create the Nile-flood. I make the fire of life, and I provide
' food in the houses. I am Khepera in the morning, I am Ra at
' noon, and I am Temu at even.' Meanwhile the poison was not
taken away from his body, but it penetrated deeper, and the
great god could no longer walk.
" Then said Isis unto Ra, 'What thou hast said is not thy
' name. 0 tell it unto me, and the poison shall depart ; for
' he shall live whose name shall be revealed.' Now the poison
burned like fire, and it was fiercer than the flame and the
furnace, and the majesty of the great god said, ' I consent that
' Isis shall search into me, and that my name shall pass from me
' into her.' Then the god hid himself from the gods, and his
place in the Boat of Millions of Years was empty. And when
the time had arrived for the heart of Ra to come forth, Isis spake
unto her son Horus, saying, ' The god hath bound himself by
' oath to deliver up his two Eyes (i.e., the Sun and the Moon).'
Thus was the name of the great god taken from him, and Isis,
the lady of words of magical power, said, ' Depart, thou poison,
' go forth from Ra. 0 Eye of Horus, go forth from the god, and
' shine outside his mouth. It is I who work, it is I who make to
' fall down upon the earth the vanquished poison, for the name
' of the great god hath been taken away from him. Let Ra live,
' and let the poison die ! Let the poison die, and let Ra live ! '
These are the words of Isis, the mighty lady, the mistress of the
gods, who knew Ra by his own name." The above text was to
be recited over figures of Temu, " the Bull of his mother," and
Horus, and Isis and Horus, and there is little doubt that these
figures were made to represent the various scenes which took
place when Ra was poisoned, and when the goddess Isis succeeded
in taking from him his name.
Another myth of Ra of considerable interest is that which
describes the destruction of mankind, and tells how men scorned
the great Sun-god because he had become old ; ^ the text of this,
1 For the hieroglyphic text see Lefebure, Tombeau de Seti I., part iv., pll. IS-
IS ; Brugsch, Die neue Weltordnung, Berlin, 1881 ; Naville in Trans. Soc. Bihl.
ArcJi., iv., pp. 1 ff . ; viii., pp. 412 ff. ; Bergmann, Hist. Inschrift., pll. 75-82; and
my Fii'st Stejjs in Egyptian, pp. 218-230.
364 REVOLT OF MEN AGAINST
in a mutilated condition, is found inscribed upon the walls of the
tombs of Seti I. and Rameses IV. at Thebes, and from it the
following is clear. " [Ra is] the god who created himself after he
had risen in sovereignty over men, and gods, as well as over
things, the One. And mankind was uttering words of complaint,
saying, ' Behold now, his Majesty, life, strength, and health [to
' him] ! hath become old, his bones are like silver, his limbs are
' like gold, and his hair is like unto real lapis-lazuli.' Now his
majesty heard the words which mankind spake [concerning
him], and he said unto those who were following him, ' Cry out,
' and bring ye unto me mine Eye, and Shu, and Tefnut, and
' Seb, and Nut, and the fathers and the mothers who were with
' me when I was in Nu, together with my god Nu. Let him
' bring his ministers with him, and let them be brought silently,
' so that mankind may not perceive it and take to flight with
' their hearts. Come thou with them to the Great House, and
' let them declare their plans, for I will go forth from Nu unto
' the place wherein I performed creations, and let those [gods] be
'brought unto me there.' Now the gods were on both sides of
Ra, and they bowed down even to the ground in presence of his
Majesty, and he spake his words in the presence of the father of
the firstborn gods, the maker of men, and the king of those who
have knowledge. And they spake before his Majesty, [saying],
' Speak unto us, for we are listening'; and Ra spake unto Nu,
saying, ' 0 thou firstborn god, from whom I came into being, 0
' ye gods [my] ancestors, behold ye what mankind is doing, they
' who were created by mine Eye are uttering murmurs against
' me. Give me your attention, and seek ye out a plan for me,
' and I will not slay them until ye shall say [what I am to do]
' concernino; it.'
" Then the Majesty of the god Nu, the son of Ra, spake
[saying], ' Thou art the god who art greater than he that made
" thee, and who art the sovereign of those who were created by
' him, thy throne is set, and the fear of thee is great ; let
' then thine Eye be upon those who have uttered blasphemies
' against thee.' And the Majesty of Ra spake [saying],
' Behold ye how they have taken flight into the mountain !
THE SUN-GOD RA 365
' Their hearts are afraid because of what they have said.'
' Then the gods spake before his Majesty, saying, ' Make
' thine Eye to go forth, and let it destroy for thee those who
' utter evil words of blasphemy against thee. There is not an
' eye upon all this earth Avhich can resist thine when it
' descendeth in the form of Hathor.' And the goddess [Hathor]
went forth and slew the people on the mountain, and the Majesty
of this god spake, [saying], ' Come, come in peace, Hathor, the
' work is accomplished.' And the goddess said, ' Thou livest for
' me. When I had gained the mastery over men it was well
' pleasing to my heart.' And the Majesty of Ra spake, [saying],
' I will gain the mastery over them as king, and [I] will destroy
' them ' ; and it came to pass that Sekhet waded about in the
night season in their blood, beginning at Suten-henen (Herakleo-
polis Magna). Then the Majesty of Ra spake, [saying], 'Cry out
' and fetch me swift and speedy messengers who can run like the
' wind ' ; and straightway one brought these messengers. And
the Majesty of this god spake, [saying], ' Let them go to Abu
' (Elephantine), and bring me mandrakes in great number ' ; and
one brought to him these mandrakes, and the Majesty of this god
gave them to Sekhet who [dwelleth] in Annu (Heliopolis) to
crush. And behold, when the women were crushing the barley
to [make] beer, he placed these mandrakes in the vessels which
were to hold the beer, and some of the blood of the men [who
had been slain]. Now they made seven thousand vessels of
beer.
" Now when the king of the South and North, Ra, had come
with the gods to look at the beer, and the daylight appeared
after the goddess had slaughtered mankind in their season as she
sailed up the river, the Majesty of Ra said, ' It is doubly good,
' but I must protect mankind against her,' And Ra spake,
[saying], ' Let them take up the vases and carry them to the
' place where men and women are being slaughtered.' Then the
Majesty of the king of the South and North, Ra, commanded
them to pour out from the vessels during the [time of the]
beauty of the night the beer which made [men] wish to lie down,
and the regions of the four heavens were filled therewith even
366 REVOLT OF MEN AGAINST
according to the Will of the Majesty of this god. Now when the
goddess Sekhet came in the morning and found the regions flooded,
her face beamed with joy, and she drank of the beer and blood,
and her heart was glad, and she became drunk, and she took no
further heed of mankind. And the Majesty of Ra spake unto
this goddess, [saying] ' Come, come in peace, 0 fair and gracious
' goddess ; ' [and henceforth] there were young and beautiful
women in the city of Amen.-^ Then the Majesty of Ra said unto
this goddess, ' There shall be prepared for thee vases of drink
' which shall make thee wish to sleep at every festival of the New
' Year, and the number thereof shall be in proportion to the
' number of my handmaidens ; ' and from that day until this
present men have been wont to make on the occasions of the
festival of Hathor vases of beer which will make them sleep, in
number according to the number of the handmaidens of Ra.
And the Majesty of Ra spake unto this goddess, [saying],
' Behold, the pain of the burning heat of sickness hath come
' upon me ; whence cometh [this] pain ? ' Then the ^Majesty of
Ra said, ' I am alone, but my heart hath become exceedingly
' weary of being with them (i.e., with men) ; I have slain [some
' of] them, but there is a remnant of worthless ones, and the
' destruction which I wrought among them was not commensurate
' with my power.' And the gods who were in his train said
[unto him], ' Tarry not in thy weariness, for thy might is in
' proportion to thine own will.' Then the Majesty of this god
said unto the Majesty of Nu, ' For the first time my limbs have
' lost their power, and I will never permit this thing to happen
' a second time.' "
At this point the inscription becomes much broken, and it is
difficult to make out the general meaning which is to be attached
1 Here there is a pun on tlae appellation of the goddess Amit m ¥\ (1 (1 D-. ,
and on the name of the city Amen, ^(|§ ©, i.e., the capital of the nome,
-Tl I I I ^
Mill:
Ament, where the goddess Hathor was worshipped. The city is also called
n I A A A ^
® ® ® <^ 5 ^"^ ^^16 " city of Apis."
THE SUN-GOD RA 367
to the scattered words ; according to the late Dr. Brugsch/ the
myth ends somewhat as follows: — When Ra had described his
weariness to Nu, this god commanded Shu to perform the work of
Rci and to take the place of his Eye, and directed the sky goddess
Nut to help Ra. Nut asked Nu how this was to be done, and he
told her to take Ra upon her back ; thereupon Nut took the form
of a cow, and Ra seated himself upon her back. In due course
mankind saw Ra on the back of Nut, and they were filled with
remorse at their former behaviour towards him, and they wished to
see slain his enemies who had blasphemed him, but his Majesty did
not tarry, and he went on into the temple. On the following day
as soon as the morning had come, men went forth armed with
bows and spears in order to do battle Avith the enemies of Ra, and
as soon as the god saw this he said to them, " Your sins are
" forgiven you, for the sacrificial slaughters which ye have made
" have done away with the murders [which mine enemies have
" committed]." Then Ra raised himself from the back of the
goddess Nut into the sky, where he made for himself a kingdom
in which all people were to be assembled. Finally he ordered a
Field to come into being, l|„i)^l| hetep seMiet, and straight-
way the Field of Hetep (" Peace "), l)^[]j "^ "^ Sekhet-hetep,^c8i.me
into being, and the Majesty of the god said, "I will plant
" \\ "m^ ^^^ 4 ^ dardt-d, literally, I will make to grow)
" green herbs therein," and straightway there came into being
Sekhet-aaru,^ MI xT i 1 "^ ^^^ ^ "^ m ' " ^"^^ ^ ^^^^ P^®"^^^^
" it with objects which sparkle,* that is to say with stars."
Thereupon the goddess Nut quaked in all her members, and Ra
declared that he would make supports to come into existence
to strengthen her, and straightway supports appeared. Ra next
1 Die Neue Weltordnung nacli Veniichtung des siindigen MenschengescJdecJites,
von H. Brngsch, Berlin, 1881, p. 23.
" Note the jingle in tlie words sekhet and hetep.
3 Note the play on the verbal aarat-d and the noun aaru.
^ Note the jingle in ■ i JcJiet, " objects," and (1 ^ [1 ^ >lc i " things which
sparkle."
THE COW-GODDESS NUT 369
ordered his son Shu to place himself beneath the goddess Nut,
who was trembling, in such a way as to suf)port her body, and he
ordered him to take heed to the supports, or pillars, whereon
the goddess rested, and to protect them, and to keep Nut stayed
upon his head.
Near this place in the text we have a representation of the
great cow-goddess Nut, i.e., the heavens and the sky (see opposite).
Along the belly of the cow, which is emblematic of the sky, and is
supported by the god Shu, are thirteen stars, and immediately below
are the two boats of the Sun-^od. In the Matet boat stands a fisfure
of Ra as god of the day, with a disk upon his head, and in the Sektet
boat we see the god seated in a shrine ; the former boat is between
the fore-legs of the cow of Nut, and the latter by her udders.
Each leg of the cow is supported by two gods, one in front and
one behind, and each god who is with the cow has a special name,
which is duly set forth in the text which runs in vertical columns
on each side of the scene. ^
When the narrative recommences (line 56) we are told that
the Majesty of the god Ra commanded Thoth to give the order
that the god Seb, or Sab, ^\ J Jj (whom Brugsch calls " Keb "),
should come into his presence forthwith, and when he had done so,
and Seb had appeared before him, Ra told him that strife had
arisen by reason of the worms (or snakes), ? "^"^^^^ %. IMS., which
were in his (i.e., Seb's) territory, and, he added, " May they fear
me as long as I am alive." Ra also told him to find out what their
plans were, and then to go to the place wherein was his father Nu,
and to warn him to be careful about what was on the earth and in
the water. The text which immediately follows is full of difficulty,
but its general meaning seems to be that Ra expects Seb to keep
watch on the serpents in the earth, and that although he is about
to betake himself to the uppermost regions of heaven his light will
find them in their holes, and will watch them. Moreover, Ra
promises that he will give the men who have knowledge of words
of power, fi U '^ fl (1 v dl) ' ' clo^^iiiioii over them, and that he
^ See Lefebure, Tomheau cle Seti I., part iv., pi. 16, 11. 47 ff.
B b
370 THOTH, VICAR OF RA
will furnish them with spells and charms which shall draw them
from their holes. After these things the Majesty of the god
Ra ordered that Thoth should come into his presence speedily,
and when he had arrived he said to him, " Come, let us depart
" from heaven, and from my place, because I am about to create
" a thing of light (^: °) of the god of light (^ ® ^ ^ J) ,
" in the Tuat ( ^) and in the Land of Babat (^ i^^ ^ ^^^ ^) •
" And there thou shalt write down for punishment among the
" dwellers therein those who have committed deeds of rebellion,
" and those whom my heart hateth. And thou shalt be in my
"place ([ ^_ dst), and thou shalt be called Asti ( r ^ i<^?i)'
" that is to say, the deputy of Ra. And it shall be permitted to
" thee to send for thy messenger (m '^ J "^ J\ hah), and at
" these words the ibis (nU '^. J W "^^ liahi), which is the envoy
" of Thoth, came into being." Ra next tells Thoth that he will
give him the power to lift up his hand before the great companies
of the gods, A^ "^^ v\ -^ ''^ R ' ^ ' ' ^"^^ makes a play on the
words hhen ® jj , and Tekhni '^ \\ ^ , a bird sacred to Thoth ;
he also promises to make Thoth to embrace (1 ^x fi ,^ "^ — ° dnh,
the two heavens with his beauties, and straightway the Moon,
(1 Q I ^-c^ 3 , came into being. Thoth is to drive back, ^^'wv^ du,
the H a-nebu, mT yz:^ ] ^-^^ , and straightway the Ape, ^^^-^^ ^
dndn, of the god came into being ; and finally Thoth is to be
wholly the representative of Ra upon earth.
From the observations which follow the words of Ra we
can see how holy these words were considered to be. Any one
who wished to repeat them must anoint his face with oil, and rub
his hands and the places behind his ears with incense, and cleanse
his mouth with natron, and wash his new apparel in Nile water,
and put on white sandals, and lay a figure of Maat upon his
tongue ; and he must cleanse himself with a sevenfold cleansing
each day for three whole days. Finally, the king (Seti I.) for
THE KING'S SOUL 371
whom these texts were written declares that his soul is the soul of
Shu, and [Khnemu], and Neheli, 'vww^ |^ O | PQ^ 3 , and Kek,
^"^^^X^, and Kerh, ^ f ""^ J? and Nu, and Ra, and Asar-Ba-
Tettet, and the souls of the Sebak gods, 0 J (1 ^3^ ^^ I , and of
the Crocodiles, and the soul of every god in the form of a serpent,
I ^^ 1^1 ^' ^^^ *^® ^^"^ ^^ -'^P^P? a^<^^ of Ra in all the earth.
( 372 )
CHAPTER XI
THE LEGEND OF RA AND ISIS
HIEROGLYPHIC TEXT WITH TRANSLITERATION AND
TRANSLATION
1^ 1
^ ^ \\
^
Be en neter netevti hheperu tchesef dri
Chapter of the god divine (?) self-produced, the maker
I s
t
pet fa mdu en
of heaven, [and] earth, [and] the breath of
dnkh Met
life, of fire,
^ '
neteru
of gods,
(^
reth dut
of men, of beasts
I till unit
menmen
of cattle.
^ e
I I I
\
apt
remu
suten
reth
ci I I I
tche/fet
of reptiles and
creeping things,
mi k
neteru em
of the fowl [and] of fishes, the king of men [and] of gods, in
of the air,
1 -fj=^
U I
^ w
I
I I
<=^=K
Idler ud henti er renput dslti renu
form one, [to whom] periods [are] as years, of many names,
of 120 years
RA AND ISIS
373
w
S=f2
AAAAAA 'Ss'
(in rekh
£:f5
w
inii
an relch pefi an rekh pefi neteru
not known is that [god], not known is that [god to] the gods.
dstu Ast em set saa en
Behold, Isis was in the a woman [who was] skilled in
form of
set
tclietu khak-db-s er hehu em
words (i.e., matters). Her heart rebelled at the millions of
I I
m^i
D ^
n
reth setep eres hehu em neteru apt-set
men, she chose rather the millions of the gods, and she esteemed
hehu em
khu
IcsTT I
an khem set em pet
the millions of the spirits " Could she not be in heaven
[of more value].
ma Ba
S
I IS
ta
ta ma Ba dri kert
[and] earth like Ra [and] make herself mistress of the earth
1
netert
ka-set
and a goddess," she meditated
em db-set
in her heart.
er rekh
by knowing
\\ )
1
ren neter shepsi
the name of the god holy ? "
374
RA AND ISIS
(^
A
o
o
I
^ 1
dstu ciq en Bci hru neb em hat qet - [/]
Behold, came in Ra every day in front of [his] sailors,
I AAAAAA ■ill
smen-thd
and was stablished
(^
daut
Had become old
I
her
upon
o \\
nest
the throne
hhuti
of the two horizons.
1
w
T
AAAAAA
1 AA/^A^A
he poured out
the divine one,
nebdut - /
his exudations
e^wi-M. - nef re - f
he dribbled at his mouth,
er ta
the ground,
upon
pekas en su sehher her sat
and his spittle fell upon the earth.
Pja
sek-nes Ast
Isis she kneaded [it]
hi
^
em tet-set hena ta unenet her-set qet-nes-set
in her hand with earth which was on it, she fashioned it
^ w
e7n tchetfeti
in the form of a serpent
W
AA/VV\A 1 ^
shepsi dri en set em
sacred, [and] she made [it] in
A
'M!\
hm\
AAAAAA
^'^'^'^ K>!v '^ 'wwv\ ^\ (3 [ _/\ — H —
qad
heti
an
nemunemud-s
the form
of a dart.
Not
did it move along
#
dnhli-thd
alive
RA AND ISIS
er hheft-set khad-set
before her, [and] she left [it]
^ I
uat
D D
^1
I
hamu
lying
375
<^
her
on
djpep neter aa hers er aha - /
the path whereon journeyed the great god according to his desire
em khet
=^^s \\
taui - f
through his two lands.
1 \
neter
The god
shepsi
holy
Q
f^? m^
hhd - f
rose up,
er ha
behind
neteru
the gods
j^
em Aa-perti dnJch utcha senb em Jchet- f
in the great double house, life, strength, health! [were] folio wing him.
P^P"ri^-
seftseft - f
O
(^
m(i ^-7^1^ ?2e5 unhhu-set em
[and] he marched on as [he did] every day [when] bit [him]
w
w
f
7^.
tchetfeti shepsi khet dnkhet per-thd
the serpent sacred ; the fire of life was coming out
i
w
^
(^111
dm - f tchesef ter-nes dmi na dshu
from him himself, it destroyed the dweller in the cedars.
376
RA AND ISIS
neter netri
The god divine
hen -f a. u. s. ])^^}'^^^f ^^ P^^
his Majesty L. S. H. ! reached unto heaven.
^
\,m-\ - f
he ojDened
re - f hheru en
his mouth, the voice of
. , , 6
Paut
The company
niJi
^ (2
^
D ^
(3 III
neteru tiif her md ])u-u neteru - f
of the gods was for [saying], " What is it ? " His gods [were]
^
D ^
her petrd-u
for [saying] " What is the matter ? "
an
Not
(2
^ (3 ^/ IJ
mettu
words
J
er
to
X 1
usheht
answer
I
her -f
about it.
qeyri - f
found he
drti-fi
His two jaws
1 ® ^ t) ^ y^ c. 9, 1
/i-er Ichethhet at - f
rattled, his limbs
neb
all
^5P
(2
W
WW
dstiti
trembled
y^ AAAAA^
^^ \il 1 /vww^
metu
the poison
n
AAftAAA
V
thetet-nef em dufi
took possession of his body
md thetet Hdjp
as taketh possession the Nile
em khet - f
of his river bed.
1'
neter
aa
I rKrj\f\f^ id/ L
The god great
smen-nef db -f
stablished his heart.
RA AND ISIS
377
Ijnds'] - f er
he [cried] out to
W
dmiu hhet - f
those in his train
/\ A/WV\A
I i I
mdi-ten nd
" Come to me.
I I I Jii^ A ^ ^ I ^
kliepert em hdt-d
0 ye who have come into being from my members,
neteru
[ye] gods
nrz2 e
7\ 111
peru
who have proceeded
A □
AAAAA^
I I I
khejperd-set
what hath happened
em-a
from me,
temu-entii
tat rekh-ten
and I will make you to know
! I I
(2 Ci
hhet
meru
I am wounded by something deadly,
I C-LL /WWV\ O O I -<2>- )^i (VWWV
rekh-set db-d dn maa su maa-d dn
knoweth it my heart. Not have seen it my eyes, not
dri set tet-d dn rekh-set em dri-nd neht
made it my hand, not know [I] it who hath done [this] to me
anyone,
D ^
<$.
^^
i:P'
1 1 1
dn teptu-d ment mdtet-set dn meru
not have I tasted pain like it, never was deadly [anything]
0
er-s
more than it.
dnuk
I am
ser
a prince,
sa ser
the son of a prince,
;78
RA AND ISIS
AA/W\A
e
1^ 1^1
mu hheperit em neter
the divine issue produced by a god.
dnuh
I am
ur
a great one,
^.
so- ur maid en dtef-d ren-d
the son of a great one, thought out my father my name.
III 0 (^
<^^
(S
(^
a?i-?J(^ «s/i2i rennu dsht kheperu du
I am of many names, of many forms (or, existences) is
hheperd-d tmu em neter neh nds-d-tu
my form (or existence) living in god every. I have proclaimed
C^innr
(2
D (2
Temu Hern hehennu
Temu and Heru Hekennu.
du tchet
Have uttered
dtef-d
my father
C5
l-J I AAAAAA ' <£il I
iniit-d ren-d dmen-set em Jchat-d er
and my mother my name, hidden was it in my body by
M\
^
^ w
mes-a en men
my begetter who wished
tern erf at kheperu pehti
not to let have power
hehau-d en heJcai er-d
him Avho would enchant me by enchantments over me.
RA AND ISIS
{79
(2 J\
peru-h er
1 had come forth from
I
ha
the abode
er maa ari-na
to see what I had made
(9 -^
51
^>
sutet em taui qemamu-nd
[and] was being led through the lands [which] I had created,
^>^
\
(S
em tchetem kher-d an rekh-d su
when [something] aimed a blow at me [and] I know not Avhat it is.
an Jchet ds pit an mu as pu
Behold it is not fire, behold it is not water.
m w
db-d kheri
My heart contains
w w
dstiti
\Jchet]u liat-d dstiti dt-\_d'\ kheri
fire, my limbs [are] trembling, [my] members contain
1 1 m
dt-\_d'\
m \\
P\i llH^^
(2
I I I
mesu hesiu
the children of quakings.
dmmd dntu-nd
I pray you let be brought to me
(3
111^
mesu-d neteru
my children, the gods
khui
) I
mighty
I I I
metet
of words,
A I I I I
rekhi
skilful
with their mouths.
sart-sen
their powers,
peh-sen her
they reach to heaven.
380
RA AND ISIS
J\
A
iu-eref mesu neter neh dm
Came to him [his] children, god every there
/H w
Jvheri
with
q-J
dkebu-nef
his cries of weeping.
■J-^ A /wvvv\ n "^ n /n ^
iu en Ast Jcheri
Came Isis with
Jihnt-set
her power
i
/ ... / AAA/^A^
T III
t
as^ 'j'^-se^ em tii/w e?^ dnkh thes-set
and her skilled mouth, with the breath of life, her incantations
<©. cis::^ r"-^ ^^^
I s — -fl '^ III 4 S
her ter ment mettu-set
n
s
sdnhh
ka
heti
destroy diseases, her word maketh to live stinking throats
(i.e., throats of the dead).
e III
D ^
ism.
1
tchet-set md pu-u dtef neter petrd tchetji
She said, What is this, 0 father god ? What is it ? A snake
Q D (3
"=^^
ten mennii dm-h iid mes-k fa
hath shot sickness into thee. A thing made by thee hath lifted up
^
tep -/
erek
its head against thee.
hekaiu
words of power
ka
Verily
sekher-set
it shall be overthrown
em
by
/WWV\ 1
menkhiu
beneficent.
td-d khetkhet - f er
I will make it to depart from
o o c^liw n\ ^
sati-h
RA AND ISIS
1
netei
matt sati-iv neter tcheseri
the sight of thy rays. The god holy
381
X
dpu~nef re - /
opened his mouth :
0
D
dnuk ])u shemi
I was passing
W
taui
the two lands
r^^^^n
I
her
over
%5
-^ I
uat
the way
sutut em
going through
tJI
set-d
of my country,
dha en db-d er
wished my heart to
o o
maa
see
^ 2^
y
(^
AAA/VNA
/VWVNA
V
em
qemamu-nd khunen-nd
what I had created [when] I was bitten by
w w
tchetfi
a snake
invisible.
D
<X7i- A;/ie)5 as pu
Behold it is not fire.
<x?i- 77izi as J)'^'
behold it is not water,
A
JJ
AA/W\A
qehehh-kiid
I am colder
AA/WW I \\ I ^^
AAAAAA
er 77^^t
than water.
(S
shemem-kud
I am hotter
er
than
X
£^
seshet
fire.
hdt-d
my limbs
w w
dstiti
tremble,
neb
all
m w
^^..r^^
er kheri
are full of
III
fetet
sweat,
(^
tild
I
^ ,
.^&-
maat-d dn smen dn qemhu-d
my eye is without stability, I cannot see
382
RA AND ISIS
^
AAA/V\A
/VWVW
> 1
V
<^ ^
-WVWN /^S
AVvVNA
pe^ Ml mu her hrcl-d em shemu
the heavens, bursteth out water on my face [as] in summer.
jj;^ — g| q|j ^
tchet an
Said
\
cltef
father
Ast
Isis
en
to
Ed
Ra,
d tchet-nd
0 tell me
li f
neter
god;
diikh
liveth
ren-Ju
thy name.
sa
the person
(^
(E
temu-tu her
who hath declared
ren - f
his name.
0
s
(xm/7(^ art pet fa
[Said R;\] I am the maker of heaven [and] earth,
(S(3 III ^
(^
thes tuu qemamu unnet
theknitter together of the mountains, the creator of what exists
her - f
upon it.
cx^
0 v{i
nuh
1 am
Meht-ur
Meht-ur,
a7't
the maker
U
mu
of the water
/W^AAA AA^AAA
acting [as]
bull of
Jthepertu
making to exist
■mut -f
his mother,
Icheperu
the creator
D
X
3XZ1 " Ji^ I I I
sesheta
netchem netcltemiu nuk dri pet
of the joys of love. I am the maker of heaven and have covered over
RA AND ISIS
383
? mil -
D (3
/t/?w^t f«-<i />a nu neteru em-khemiu-set
the two horizons, I have set the soul of the gods within them
O
iiiiiiiii
hhe]3eru
^ O I
^!l
dnuh un maati-f khejjeru hetchetcMu
I am he who openeth his eyes, becometh the light ;
"^
akliennu maati-f klieperu keJmi
shutteth [he] his eyes, becometh the dark.
=v
/^A/^.^AA
AAAAAA \^
1 1
hu mu
Riseth the flood
OAAAAAA
Hap
of Hap (Nile)
}(| AAAAAA
rekh en neteru
know the gods
(5
khefl
when
utu-iief
he pjiveth the command.
O
an
not
D^O I 1
ren - /
his name.
W (2
khepeno
ra ^! 0
mile dri imnu
I am the maker of hours,
(T
renpit
(2 o I
Jiru nuk dpu hebu
the creator of days, lam the opener of the festivals of the year,
z
qemamu
the creator
T=t.
V
dtru
of streams of water.
O
nuk
I am
an
the maker
e
U
^1
I /vv\fv\r\
I I
khet dnkhet er sekhejperu kat en amu
of flame of life making to be performed works in the houses.
384
RA AND ISIS
(3
^
hiauu
G O
Rd
nuk Klie])erd em
I am Khepera in the morning, Ra
em
in
dhdu-f
his noontide.
^^nnr
(^
W
— J-ga^ I r— n 0
Temii
Temu
met
ami
an
^
in the evening.
mdsheru an khesef
[But] not was driven
em sliemi-set
the poison out of its course,
tcliet an
Said
illy
Ast
Isis
en
to
0
I
Rd
Ra
1
an netchem neter da
not was relieved the great god.
ail re7i-A: opit
: — Thv name is not enumerated
era na
among the
tchet'ii-k-nd
things which thou hast
said to me ;
a
0
tchet-k
tell thou
I III sr
set nd
it to me.
nrz3
w
r^Ti
2)eri ta
and shall come out the
metu
poison.
AAA/V\A
/VWVW
A^A/VV\
f
Shall live a person
(3
(^
temu-tu ren - f
having uttered his name.
em
with
tchetemu
burnings.
t
r=iD f
A/v/VW\
metu
The poison
(^
sekliemu-nes
it was stronger
tchetemu-set
it burned
er nebdu
than the flame
of
RA AND ISIS
385
X ^
11 /wvw\ 1/
art tchet dn hen en
fire. Said the majesty of
(5 w ,
hehici
Hid Ast
to be searched out by Isis,
A
per em ren-a
shall come forth my name
0
Rd tdt-nd
Ra, I give myself
em
from
.|<^
* 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
\.^
W
khat-d er khat-s
my body into her body.
1111
(3
dmen en su netri em
Hid himself the divine one from
usekh
neteru usekh dst em uda en heh renput
the gods, empty was the place in the Boat of millions of years.
©
D
^ J^
dr kheperu md sep pert ent
When it became about the time of the coming forth of
^.
-<t-
I
S
db
tchet-s en
sa
Heru
senha
ent su
the heart she said to [her] son Horus: — Let him bind himself by
an oath
Q AAAAAA
T # ;
em dnkh
1
netef
1
w
ertdt 7ieter maati-f
sworn by the life of the god that the god will give his tAvo eyes.
1
e
1\
^
■itA
"^^ 8 U
e
neter dat uthes - nef her ren - f
The god great was removed from his name,
Ast urt-hekauti
Isis, great in words
of power [said]: —
c c
386
RA AND ISIS
U ^ I
Run out,
r=a
f
metu
poison,
AAAAAA I
J\
o
|:»e7' e??i i^rt maat Hern
come forth from Ra, Eye ofHorus,
W Ji
])eri em neter nubmi
come forth from the god, and shine
^
O
O
nuk
ra
7^
ari-a
I, I have worked,
nuk
I
e?fc
re - /
without
his mouth
1 s
mi /ier
ta
liau er
make to fall down upon the ground
rE?k^ k
w
e
i
II
er metu sekhemu mdki utiles en neter
the poison which is defeated, verily was removed from the god
aa
rreat
=3 AAA/VNA
o
f
/.- ,^ ,wfe) ■'^AAA^A
AA/WVV
his name.
Ra may he live, the poison may it die
V
■ nnmii
/VvAAAA /VVWNA
tlies rer men mes en ment
and conversely. A certain one, the son of a certain woman,
f
ja
mzM - / metu mit tchet en Ast ur
may he live, the poison may it die. [Thus] said Isis, great lady.
O
111
o I
Rd
hent neteru rekh
mistress of the gods, who knew Ra
em ren - f tchesef
by his name his own.
RA AND ISIS
387
tchet
I
he7'
^
tut
671
To be said over an image of
Te/niu
Temu
hend
and
AAAAAA
0 e,
Ileru-Tiekennu
Heru-hekennu,
erpit Ast tut Heru
and [over] a figure of Isis, and an image of Horns.
( 388 )
CHAPTER XII
THE DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
EGYPTIAN TEXT WITH TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION
1
^
netev khefer tchesef em-kliet un-nef em
god, who created himself. After he was in
I A/^V\AA 1 1
sutenit
the sovereignty
^ w
TJdti
the One,
reth
of men.
m
neteru
I I I
em khet
and of gods, and of creation,
iin d)i
V</^M
reth her hat metet
men and women were blaspheming and saying,
(2
dstu
Behold,
kesu-f
f i P
eref hen dnkh utcha senh dami
his majesty, life, strength, health, has grown old,
ee?
^ til
em hetch hdu - f em, nvh
his bones are like silver, his limbs like gold
O O O /VSAAAA bliL I
sheni - f
his hair
em
H -iCl O O O — U
kheshet madt
AAA/W\
tin dn
hen-f
her setem
is like lapis-lazuli real ; was his majesty listening to
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
ISO
^ 1112
metet an
reth tchet an ^C'^i-f ctnhli utcha senh
what said mankind. Said his majesty, life, strength, health.
'=^ w
er enti emkhetti-f nds md-nd er maat-d
to those who were in his train. Call, bring me my Eye,
er Sim Tefmit Seh
and Shu, Tefnut, Seb
Nut
Nut,
^
liend dtefiu 7nut
and the father and mother
gods
DOD
m
uneniu hend-d dstu-d em Nu liena kher
who lived Avith me when behold I was in Nu, together with
1
^7^7^ AA^AAA
AAAAAA
i 1
mm
neter-d
my god
Nu
Nu.
dn-nef shenthi - f
Let him bring his ministers
1
dn-nek set em
Bring thou them in
ketket
silence.
am
that not
1^1^
reth
mankind.
am
not
liar
may flee
I I I I
dh-sen
their hearts.
I I I
Ld
:3
I I I
liend - f
with him.
maa
may see
^^
i-k
Come thou
Mil
hend-sen er het-dat tchet-sen sehheru-sen
with them into the great temple, let them declare their counsel
;90
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
B
W, ^\
tchertn.
fully;
lU-Ob
em
I will enter into
ODD AA^^ c^
AAAftAA j^ll
<=-
J^
1/ J /-^AAAA U
-sJ Jli
Nu
er-
bu
Nu
to
the place
Jcheper-nd dm dn-7id dn-tu enen neteru un dn
wherein I was born, let be brought to me those gods. Were
'^ "^ AAAAAA
III I AAAA/V^ I 1 \\
^
ra ^
AAAAAA I ^
'*=© ;
em-hah
enen nctern dpen her kesni-f
those gods on both sides of him, bowing to the earth before
hen -f tchet-f
his majesty. He spake
semsu
of the firstborn gods,
m.etet - f
his words
an
the maker
I
ein-hah
before
rebh
of men.
dtef
the father
I
suten
the king
rehhit
of rational beings.
n
I I I
tchet dn sen kheft
They said before
hen -f
his majesty,
I AAAAAA
I III
metu-en-n
Speak to us,
^
I I I
er setem-en-set
for we are listening to them . Said
o
tchet dn Bd
Ra
DDO
AAAAAA
en
to
Nu
Nu,
neter semsu
0 god firstborn,
khcjH'r-nd dm - f
from whom I came into
being,
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
391
inii?--^
AAAAAA
J] I I I
neterii tep-du "tnd-ten reth kheperu
and ye ancestor gods, take ye heed to mankind who came into being
^'
r\ AAAA/VA .1 ^
I I I I 4
III
em maat-d
from my eye,
ka-en-sen
they speak
metet er-d tchet-nd
words against me. Tell me
f::^ AAAAAA
I I I I I I
AAAAAA
J] I I I
drit-ten
[what] ye would do
er-s
about it.
md-ten-ud
take ye heed to it for me,
w
"=^>^
hehi'd dn sma-nd set er setemu-d
seek out a plan for me. Not will I slay them until I hear
^
AAAAAA
I I I
I AAAAAA
AAAAAA
tchet-thd ten er-s tchet dn hen en
Avhat ye say concerning it. Said the majesty of
Nu
Nu,
sa
the son
O
I
Rd
of Ra
\\
1
neter da er dri su
God greater than he who made him,
^>
]]
}ir
mightier
er
than
i
dst-k ur sent-k
thy throne, great is. the fear of thee,
I T _£[ ru I — H— ^
qema\_m~\-m'SU hems
those who were created with him, sit on
du niaat-k er
let thine Eye be upon
392
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
nam dm-k
those who blaspheme thee.
III I III
1^
^ IV !'
AA^A/V\
oi
tchet an hen
en
Rd
Said the majesty
of
Ra:
r^^
^
1 r\ AAAAA/\
1 I
I I
md-ten set
Behold ye them
uar
fleeing
I
er set dh-sen
into the mountain, their hearts
I I I
^V
sentu
are afraid
her tcJief e7i sen
because of what they have said.
I I I
tcliet dn-sen
They said
kheft hen - f
before his majesty
td shem
o I
\
maat'k hau-s-riek
Let go forth thine Eye, let it destroy for thee
ill
set
those
f^■^^^^
I I I
navii
who blaspheme
em
with
tu
wickedness,
/WVW^ '^ I
dti inaat
not an eye
^ w
er
in
khenti dm-s
can precede it
em Het-IIert
in the form of Hathor.
t^lll-
hu -k
resistance . . . .
ra
set has
[when] it goeth down
7^^ 1
1
iu dn eref
Went forth then
netert
goddess
ten
this,
<^
^ I
smam-nes
she slew
reth
mankind
her set
on the mountain.
IV
tchet dn
Said
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
393
1
□
AWAAA
w
w
hen en neter pen
the majesty of this god
idi-ui
em hetep Het-Hert
Come, come in peace, Hathor,
iii^iv ^'Tiz f
drit en drit tcliet dn netert ten dnkli-k nd
for the deed is done. Said this goddess : — Thou gavest me life,
dii sekliem-nd
when I had power
em
over
reth
mankind
(1 V/ 0 1 AAAAAA O
dh-d. tcliet dn hen en Rd
my heart. Said the majesty of Ra :
III I
du netchem her
it was pleasing to
^ q^i-t
du-d er sekhem
I will be master
I I I
}
em sen em suten
over them as king
I I il III
em sdntu-set kheper
destroying them. It came to pass that
TA ^\u
izsz: ^ X
I I I
Sekhet pu shehebet
Sekhet of the offerings
I^
ent
of
AA/VSAA i^ AAAAAA
^^^] ill I I I '
senfsen
their blood
kerh
the night
n
+
I
er rehet her
waded about in
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
w
0
shad
beginning
em Suten-henen tchet dn Bd
in Suten-henen. Said Ra:-
01 as
ma-na
Call, bring to me
dputi
messengers
III
^1^ H^\
khau sdnnu
swift [and] speedy
394
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
seklisekhsen
they shall run
I I I
shut en
[like] the wind of
khat
the body ;
an an- 111
one brought
^ w
enen dpufi
messengers
D
AAAAAA
^
w
d'pen her dui
these straightway.
1
D
AAAAAA
I I
tchet an hen en
Said the majesty of
neter yen
this god :—
sha-sen
Let them go
er
to
J^
P^/N-^l
I
I I I
III
Ahu an nd tdtddt er ur
Elephantine [and] bring me mandrakes in great number,
Q r\ AAAAAA AAAAAA "X -S
AAAAAA A n ri d O
W III
W
dn dn-tu nef enen tdtddt ertdt dn hen
One brought to him these mandrakes, gave the majesty
1 °
I A^AA^
^ w
O
^
t
e?i Tieie?' pe??/ Sektet enti em Annu her netch
of this god to Sektet who is in Heliopolis to crush
1 W III 1 AAAAA
tdtddt dpen
mandrakes these.
b&t) I
•1 A
dstu kher
^
X
hent
her tesh
Behold, when the women were bruising
^ III
^y-\
^:fA
■pertu er he</t ertd dn-tu tdtddt dpen
the barley for beer, and they were placing mandrakes these
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
395
JJ
I ^^ X
lier shebehet
in the beer vessels,
drit-dn-hi
AAA^^ W'/^yW
f f ^ — ^ ^.^-p I
%%'Z>. AAAAAA J^ 1
[they became] blood of
reth
men.
^ III
heqt
/vvvvv\
drnet
A\\
7000
Z^if,
0-72
Having been made of beer vessels seven thousand, came
si] i:
eref
hen
en
sute7i hat
Bd
therefore the majesty of the king of the South Ra
and North
hend
with
m fi °
III I AA/VW\
neteru dpen
gods these
y I AAAAAA /S
67'
to
libaa
see
^ III
this
heqet
beer.
:n:
1^7
hetch ta
when it was dawn.
iii —
67?-
^=:>^
smama
after had slaughtered
dstu
Behold,
reth
men
ppp^:^p
o
III I
sesu-sen nu
ctw netert em
the goddess during their period of sailing up the river,
khentithit
U ' AAAAAA
metch dn hen en
said the majesty of
O
I
Bd
Ra:—
neferui set
It is good, it is good.
<^
du'd er mdket reth
I am for protecting mankind against her. Said Ra
P ^^V?^
hers tchet dn Bd
396
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
I I
1 1
ll^'%\ '^'^^^n
fai md set er hua
Let them carry and bring them to the place
ra
D
o
flV
reth
am
hep d'ii
hen
en
lies syjia
she slew
siden hat
mankind therein. Commanded the majesty of the king of the
South and North
iZlM
III
S
"T"
'^=A
■C^ ^Ti ^Zi
Bd em iieferu kerh rr ertdt satet-fu
Ra during the beauties of the night to cause to be poured out
XI AAAAA^ I <Clr> ■* '' III /WWV\ 1 ^
enen setchert un d.n
these vases of sleep-causing beer, were
^ I
V i
ahet
the fields
^ \\
enti
of
III
^
cx^x.
2^et
heaven
ffu
the four
her meh em.
filled with
A/V\^AA
AAAA'V^
mu
water
em
by
I I
) I I AAAft/V\
J I
haiu en
the Will of
1 .wwvv ^^JiHW I'^m
hen en neter pen
the majesty of this god.
shemt dn netert ten
Came goddess this
(i.e., Sekhet)
em
in
^
o
w
tuain
morning,
qem-nes
found she
"^ "^ AAAAAA
[ * "^l" AAAAAA
enen
this [heaven]
<^ ■=<=>^
AAAAAA
AAAAAA
flooded.
nefer
joyful
qV ?h 1
I
hrd-set
m h TPS^
a^i lira-set dm un dn set her surd
was her face because of it, Avas she drinking,
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
397
I I ^
her dh-set
A
tekh-thd
nefer lier ab-set i-nes
merry was her heart, she came to a condition of drunkenness,
an
sa-nes
reth
tchet an hen
O
en Bd
not knew she mankind. Said the majesty of Ra
AA/\AAA
en netert ten
it-ui em hetep
to goddess this: — Come, come in peace, 0 Beautiful one ;
Aonit
^ 6 ^ u n I ^^ f f f ^^==1 1 H
hheper nefert em A^n tchet an
and there became beautiful young women in Am. Said
O
1^^
hen
en Bd en netert ten
dri en set
the majesty of Ra to goddess this : — Let be made for her
I o
D
/VW\AA
setchertet em trdiu renjpet dpen
vases of sleep -causing beer at seasons of the year these ;
set er hent-d hheper drit
they [shall be] in proportion to my handmaidens. There were made
D
D ^
setchert pu em dpt hent
vases of sleep- according to the number of the handmaidens
causing beer
398
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
y--
s^!
Iieh en Het-hert dii. refh, neh tcher hm
of the festival of Hathor by mankind all since the day
@
W
o
1
fepi tchet an hen en
first. Said the majesty of
Rd
Ra
en
to
netert
ten
goddess this :-
^^
ra
ra
^^
an du mer en heh en mer kheper
Behold a pain of fire of sickness hath come [on me],
*~ -* *^ -* I I £ZJ! 'I /vww\ I
klier trd-ui
dn mer tchet dn hen en
whence, 0 whence is the pain ? Said the majesty of
5Q
I
Rd
Ra:-
f
W^.i m,\
^^ ^.
dnkh-nd
I live.
dn dh-d urtu ur nnen
[but] my heart is very weary of being
hend-sen
with them.
%^^
smam-d
I slew
set Sep
them, [but] there remain
en
of
^^
^^1
dti dn un dnt dutu
the worthless, for not was the destruction as wide-spreading
Q
ni
A/VW\A
^ w
J\
d-d tchetet en neteru
[as] my power. Said the gods
enti ami- Jchet- f
who were in his train
em hell
Tarry not
DESTRUCTION OF MANKIND
399
?
em
in
nrt-h du-k
thy weariness [for] thou art
sekhem-thd
mighty
1
em
according to
merret-h
thy will.
tchet an hen
Said
en
ivoiu viv neter fen
the majesty ol this god
AAAAAA
e?e
ra
^^
en hen en
to the majesty of
Nu
Nu:-
hdu-d ahet em
My members are weak for
D ® D /VWNAA
sejp tepi an
the first time, not
( 400 )
CHAPTER XIII
THOTH ^ (TEHUTI), AND MAAT, ^"p^, AND
the" OTHER GODDESSES AVHO WERE
ASSOCIATED WITH HIM
T"^ H B hymns to Ra which are found in the Book of the Dead
and in other funeral works of the ancient Egyptians
state that the deities Thoth and Maat stand one on each side of
the great god in his boat, and it is clear that they Avere believed
to take some important part in directing its course ; and as they
were with Ra when he sprang up from the abyss of Nu their
existence must have been coeval with his own. The conceptions
which the Egyptians formed about Thoth and Maat were both
material and spiritual, and it is impossible to arrive at any
conclusion concerning the functions of these deities without
enumerating the facts about them which may be derived from the
texts ; speaking generally, Maat may be considered the female
counterpart of Thoth. In the Pyramid Texts, our earliest
authorities, the functions of Thoth are of a purely funereal character,
that is to say, he appears only as a god who is willing to be a
helper of the deceased kings, and, although it is certain from many
passages that his assistance was eagerly awaited by souls in the
Underworld, there is no description given in these early works of
the functions of the god. We must, then, rely upon the inscrip-
tions of the later dynastic period for our knowledge of the powers
of Thoth, and from these we learn that he was called, '' Lord of
" Khemennu, self-created, to whom none hath given birth, god
" One ; " " he who reckons in heaven, the counter of the stars, the
" enumerator of the earth and of what is therein, and the measurer
'' of the earth ; " and the " heart of Rii which cometh forth in the
THOTH 401
"form of the god Thoth."^ The chief shrine of the god was
in Khemennu, zz©, called Hermopolis by the Greeks, and
Eshmunen by the Ai-abs, but he also had shrines in Abydos,
Hesert, |^, Urit, ^(1(]@, Per-ab, ^^[=zd, Rehui,
<=> I ^ ']©'], Ta-ur, ^, Sep, ^, Hat, ^, Pselket,
^ , Talmis, s=5 [j^ H J , Aa-tcha-Mutet, u^^ |
Bah, ^©, Amen-heri-ab, (1 <z=>tOi©, and Ta-kens, > s's:.
As lord of these places he was " lord of divine words," "1 \ ^^"^^ ,
"lord of Maat," , and "judge of the two combatant gods,"
\J <=> f \\ ^ e?) cJf 5 i-6-? Horus and Set ; and among other titles
we find him called "Twice great," ^^, and "Thrice great,"
^^<-='. From this last were derived the epithets "Trismegistos"
and " ter maximus " of the classical writers.
The above facts prove that Thoth was regarded as a god who
was self-begotten and self-produced, that he was One, that he made
the calculations concerning the stablishing of the heavens, and the
stars, and the earth, that he was the heart of Ra, that he was the
master of law both in its physical and moral conceptions, and that
he had the knowledge of " divine speech." From many passages
we see also that he Avas the inventor and god of all arts and
sciences, that he was the " lord of books," and the " scribe of the
gods," and " mighty in speech," i.e., his words took effect, and he
was declared to be the author of many of the funeral works by
which the deceased gained everlasting life. In the Booh of the
Dead he plays a part which gives him a unique position among
the gods, and he is represented as the possessor of powers which
are greater than those of Osiris, and even those of Ra himself.
Before, however, we go on to consider these the forms in which he
appears on the monuments must be mentioned. Usually he
appears in human form with the head of an ibis, but he also
appears as an ibis. When in human form he holds in his hands
1 See Lanzone, op. cit, p. 1265.
D d
402 THOTH
the sceptre and emblem of "life" common to all gods, but his
headdress varies according to the particular form of the god in
which the artist wishes to depict him. As the reckoner of times
and seasons he has upon his head the crescent moon and disk,
O; as a form of Shu and An-Her he wears the headdresses of these
gods ; he is also seen wearing the atef crown, ^^^ , and the united
crowns of the South and the North/ In the Book of the Dead he
appears as the " scribe of Maat of the company of the gods,"
® "1 , and then he holds in his hands the writing reed
and palette of the scribe ; but his connection with Ra and his first
rising in primeval times is indicated sometimes by the utchat ^^i
i.e., the power or strength, of the Eye of Ra, which he is seen
carrying along in his hands.
The name of the god Thoth, ^>^ , Telmti, appears to be
derived from the supposed oldest name of the ibis in Egypt, i.e.,
teliu^ to which the termination ti has been added, with the idea of
indicating that the king called Tehuti possessed the qualities and
attributes of the ibis.^ A derivation of the name which appears to
have been favoured by the Egyptians connected it with the word
tehh, ^ 'C, "a weight," and in passages quoted by Lanzone^ we
find the god actually called tehh^ ^ »^ ^' ^^^^ *^^ determinative
for the word tekli, a weight, is the sign for "heart," "O", and we
know that the bird called tehh or tekhnu, which closely resembled
the ibis, the bird sacred to Thoth, was in the opinion of some
ancient writers connected with the heart. Thus HorapoUo says
(i. 36) that when the Egyptians wish to write " heart " they draw
an ibis, for this bird was dedicated to Hermes (i.e., Thoth) as the
lord of all knowledge and understanding; and ^lian {De Nat.
Animal, x. 29) supports his testimony by adding several cuinous
and interesting facts about the habits of the ibis. Other names
given to Thoth were,^ A, (] J , and Sheps, lord of Khemennu,
^P^Ez©, Asten, () fl^ ^, Khenti, f{|l^ T;, Mehi, o<=^ I
^ See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 402 f. ~ Compare Brugsch, Religion, p. 439.
3 Op. cit., p. 1265. ■* See Brugsch, Beligion, p. 441.
THOTH 403
etc. The commonest name given to Thoth is hab, m %. ' | ^^ '^^^
" ibis," a Avord which finds its equivalent in the Coptic giRcui,
and one of his commonest forms is the dog-headed ape, rzS^,
/\A/\AAA J^9
which occupies such a prominent position in the Judgment Scene
in the Booh of the Dead. Here we see him seated on the top of the
support of the beam of the Balance in which the heart of the
deceased is weighed, where his duty is to watch the pointer, and
tell the ibis-headed Thoth when the beam is exactly level ;
according to Brugsch, this ape is a form of Thoth as the god of
" equilibrium," ^ and he appears to be a symbol of the equinoxes.
The ape dan is also connected with the moon, for he is often seen
with the lunar crescent and disk, Q, upon his head ; but there is
no doubt that he represented Thoth in his character of " lord of
divine words and the scribe [of the gods]," for in a scene re-
produced by Lanzone ^ we see him holding in one paw the god's
palette and writing reeds, and these titles are given to him.
Besides these forms of Thoth may be also mentioned those in
which he possesses the attributes of other gods. Thus as a god of
Mendes he has a human body with the head of a bull surmounted
by a disk and uraeus ; as Shu he is depicted in the form of a man
wearing the crown of Shu ; as An-her he is depicted in the form
of a man wearing the crown of this god ; as Sheps he has the head
of a hawk ; ^ the ibis and the ape dan are his commonest forms.
The principal seat of the worship of Thoth was Khemennu, or
Hermopolis, a city famous in Egyptian mythology as the place
containing the " high ground," a "^ a ^ ^, on which Ra rested
when he rose for the first time. Here he was regarded as the head
of the company of the gods of the city, who were eight in number :
Nu and Nut, Hehu and Hehut, Kek and Keket, and Kerb and
Kerhet (or Nau and Nait), i.e., four pairs of deities, each pair
consisting of a male and a female deity. As to the importance of
this company of the gods two eminent Egyptologists have held
directly opposite opinions, for the late Dr. Brugsch thought that
1 Eeligion, p. 443. 2 Qp. cit., pi. 404, No. 1.
3 iiid,^ pii_ 402 ff.
404 THOTH
the four pairs of deities formed the oldest example of the ogdoad,
while M. Maspero is of opinion that we must join the four pairs to
Thoth, when the nine gods will form an independent yaut, con-
structed partly on the model of the ]jaut of Heliopolis. Dr. Brugsch
thought that the eight gods of Hermopolis were primordial deities,
but M. Maspero thinks that their character is entirely artificial, and
that they are only " gods formed according to the laws of grammar,
" four being masculine, and four feminine." ^ The latter argues
that because the high priest of Hermopolis was called by a title
which indicates that he served " him that is chief of five," the gods
of the city were only five in number, i.e., Thoth and the four gods
of the cardinal points ; to the four gods of the cardinal points were
then assigned female counterparts, hence the " Eight gods "
1 I -^V r^ I. Thoth, according to M. Maspero, is to these what
Tem or Ra-Tem was to the jpaut of Heliopolis, and the Hermo-
politan paid was constructed after the model of the Heliopolitan
paut ; thus Nu and Nut = Shu and Tefnut, Helm and Hehut =
Seb and Nut, Kek and Keket = Osiris and Isis, and Kerh and
Kerhet (or, Nau and Nait) = Set and Nephthys. This view is,
however, not supported by the evidence of the texts, which, in
the writer's opinion, indicates, as has already been said, that the
four pairs of gods of Hermopolis belong to a far older conception
of the theogony than that of the company of gods of Helio-
polis. Another point to be remembered is that Thoth was
intimately associated with the ape, as were also the gods of his
company ; this takes us back to a very remote period when super-
natural poAvers were assigned to the particular class of ape which
was the companion of Thoth, and when the primitive Egyptian
regarded the knowledge and cunning of the dog-headed ape as
proofs of his divine nature. Between the period when this took
place and the development of the Heliopolitan theogony, a very
long interval of time must have passed ; the two conceptions
belong not only to different stages of civilization, but probably to
two distinct races of men.
One of the most interesting titles of Thoth is " Judge of the
1 La Mythologie ]Sgyptienue, p. 257.
THOTH 405
*' ReheliTii, the pacifier of the gods, who dwelleth in Unnu
'' (Hermopolis), the great god in the Temple of Abtiti." ^ A very-
early Egyptian tradition made a great fight to take place between
the god of light and the god of darkness, and in later days Ra
himself, or some form of him, generally one of the Horus gods,
was identified with the god of light, and Set, in one form or other,
was identified with the god of darkness. Thus the fights of Ra
and Apep, and Heru-Behutet and Set, and Horus, son of Isis, and
Set, are in reality only different versions of one and the same
story, though belonging to different periods. In all these fights
Thoth played a prominent part, for when the Eye of Ra, i.e., the
Sun, was doing battle with Set, this evil power managed to cast
clouds over it, and it was Thoth who swept them away, and
" brought the Eye alive, and whole, and sound, and without defect
"to its lord" (Book of the Dead, xvii. 71, ff.) ; he seems also to
have performed the same office for Ra after his combat with Apep.
At the contest between Horus, son of Isis, who fought with Set in
order to avenge the murder of his father Osiris, Thoth was present,
and when Horus had cut off his mother's head because of her
interference in the fight at the moment when victory was inclining
to him, it was Thoth who gave her a cow's head in place of her
own. In all these fights Thoth was the arbiter, and his duty
was to prevent either god from gaining a decisive victory, and
from destroying the other ; in fact, he had to keep these hostile
forces in exact equilibrium, the forces being light and darkness, or
day and night, or good and evil, according to the date of the
composition of the legends, and the objects which the scribes
intended to secure by ^vriting them down. In the group of titles
of Thoth quoted in this paragraph we see that he is called "great
god in Het-Abtit," or the Temple of Abtit, which was one of the
chief sanctuaries of the god, and was situated in Hermopolis.
The hieroglyphics with which the name " Het Abtit" are
written prove that they mean the " House of the Net," i.e., the
I W\V AWW\ /VWW\
406 THOTH
temple where a net was preserved and venerated, but the questions
naturally arise, what was this net, and what was its signification ?
We know from the two versions of Chapter cliii. of the Book of the
Bead that a net was supposed to exist in the Underworld, and that
the deceased regarded it with horror and detestation. Every part
of it, its poles, and ropes, and weights, and small cords, and hooks,
had names which he was obliged to learn if he wished to escape
from it, and would make use of it to catch food for himself, instead
of being caught by " those who laid snares." Thus in a prayer we
read, " Hail, thou ' god who lookest behind thee,' thou 'god who
" hast gained the mastery over thine heart,' I go a-fishing with
" the cordage of the ' uniter of the earth ' (Horus ?), and of him
" that maketh a way through the earth. Hail, ye fishers who have
" given birth to your own fathers, who lay snares with your nets,
" and who go round about in the chambers of the waters, take ye
" not me in the net wherewith ye ensnared the helpless fiends, and
" rope me not in with the rope wherewith ye roped in the
" abominable fiends of earth, which had a frame which reached
" unto heaven, and weighted parts that rested upon the earth."
From this passage it is clear that the Egyptians possessed a legend
in which one power or the other in the mythological combats was
armed with a net wherein he tried to ensnare his adversary. In
Chapter cxxxiii. the deceased says, '' Lift thyself up, 0 thou Ra,
" who dwellest in thy divine shrine, draw thou into thyself the
" winds, inhale the north wind, and swallow thou the heqesii
" ( J ^ 1 ^ (^) of thy net (() J ^ >^) on tlie day wherein thou
" breathest Maat." The meaning of heqesu is not quite clear in
this passage, because from its determinative, Q^ , we should naturally
connect it with some organ of the human body, but it is evident
from its context that Rfi possessed a net, and we are certain from
the former extract that it was one of the weapons which he
employed in his war against the god and fiends of darkness.
An interesting parallel is afforded by the Assyrian and
Babylonian versions^ of the fight between the Sun-god Marduk
and the monster Tiamat and her fiends, for it is said in tliem,
1 See L. W. King, Babylonian Beliijion, p. 71.
THOTH 407
" He (i.e., Marduk) set the lightning in front of him, with burning
" fire he filled his body. He made a net to enclose the inward
" parts of Tiamat, the Four Winds he set so that nothing of her
" might escape ; the South wind, and the North wind, and the
" East wind, and the West wind, he brought near to the net which
'' his father Anu had given him." It is interesting to note that in
the passage from the cxxxiiird Chapter the winds are also men-
tioned in connexion with the net of Ra, and it is difficult not to
arrive at the conclusion that the use to which the Sun-god put his
net was the same in each legend ; whether this be so, however, or
not matters little for our purpose here. It is quite clear that in
the Egyptian legend the god Thoth was supposed to have some
connexion with the net of Ra, and it is equally clear that in his
temple, Avhich was called the Temple of the Net, the emblem of a
net, or perhaps even a net itself, was venerated.
We are now able to sum up the attributes ascribed to Thoth,
and to consider how he employed them in connection with the
dead. In the first place, (he was held to be both the heart and the
tongue of Ra, that is to say, hejwas the ^reason and the mental
powers of the god, and also the means by which their will was
translated into speech ; from one aspect he was speech itself, and
in later times he may well have represented, as Dr. Birch said, the
Xoyo9 of Plato. In every legend in which Thoth takes a prominent
part we see that it is he who speaks the word that results in the
wishes of Ra being carried into efiect, and it is evident that^when
be^ had once given, the word of command that command could not.
fail^fco be carried out by one means or the other. He spoke the
words which resulted in the creation of the heavens and the earth,
and he taught Isis the words which enabled her to revivify the
dead body of Osiris in such wise that Osiris could beget a child by
her, and he gave her_the formulae which_ brought back her son
Jlorus to life after he had been stung to death by a scorpion. His
knowledge and powers of calculation measured out the heavens,
and planned the earth, and everything which is in them ; his will
and power kept the forces in heaven and in earth in equilibrium ;
it was his great skill in celestial mathematics which made proper
use of the laws (madt ^^ '=^ : h upon which the foundation and
408 THOTH
maintenance of the universe restedj^it was he who directed the
potions of the heavenly bodies and their times and seasons ; and
without his words the gods, whose existence depended upon them,
could not have kept their place among the followers of Ra. He
was the inscribe of the gods^" and possessed almost unlimited power
in the Underworld ; the god Osiris was in many ways wholly
dependent upon his good offices, and the ordinary mortal sought
his words and help with great earnestness. In the Judgment
Scene in the Book of the Bead it is Thoth who acts the part of the
recording angel, and it is his decision which is accepted by the
gods, who ratify the same and report it to Osiris ; for when once
Thoth said that the soul of the deceased had been weighed, and
that it had been found true by trial in the Great Balance, and
that there was no wickedness whatsoever in it, the gods could not
fail to answer, " That which cometh forth from thy mouth is true,
" and the deceased is holy and righteous " ; and in consequence
they straightway award him a place with Osiris in the Sekhet-
Hetepu, or Elysian Fields. _Thoth as the ^reat god ofwordswas
rightly regarded as the judge of words, and the testing of the soul
in the Balance in the Hall of Osiris is not described as the judging
or "Aveighing of actions," but as the ^^ weighing of words,"
To words uttered under certain conditions the greatest
importance was attached by the Egyptians, and in fact the whole
efficacy of prayer appears to have depended upon the manner and
tone of voice in which the words were spoken. Thoth could teach
a man not only words of power, but also the manner in which
to utter them, and the faculty most coveted by the Egyptian
was that which enabled him to pronounce the formulae and
Chapters of the Boole of the Bead in such a way that they could
not fail to have the effect which the deceased wished them to have.
After the names of deceased persons we always find in funeral
papyri the words maci Jcheru '^ I ^ ^ ' ^^ ^^ ^ -^^ ^ I 9(1 '
which mean " he Avhose word is mad,'^ that is to say, he v/hose
1 See the passages enumerated in my Vocabulary to the Boole of the Dead,
p. 96.
THOTH 409
words possess such power that whenever they are uttered by him
the effects which he wished them to produce unfaihngly come to
pass. The words, however, here referred to are those which must
be learned from Thoth, and without the knowledge of them, and of
the proper manner in which they should be said the deceased could
never make his way through the Underworld. The formulae of
Thoth opened the secret pylons for him, and provided him with
the necessary meat, and drink, and apparel, and repelled baleful
fiends and evil spirits, and they gave him the power to know the
secret or hidden names of the monsters of the Underworld, and to
utter them in such a way that they became his friends and helped
him on his journey, until at length he entered the Fields of Peace
of Osiris or the Boat of Millions of Years. These are the words
referred to in the title of Thoth, " lord of divine words," or " lord
of the words of god." The whole of the BooTc of the Dead was
assumed to be the composition of Thoth, and certain chapters of it
he "wrote with his own fingers." In the late work called the
" Book op Breathings " it is said, " Thoth, the most mighty god,
" the lord of Khemennu, cometh to thee, and he writeth for thee
" the '■ Book of Breathings ' with his own fingers. Thus thy
" soul shall breathe for ever and ever, and thy form shall be
" endowed with life upon earth, and thou shalt be made a god
" along with the soals of the gods, and they shall be the heart
" of Ra, and thy members shall be the members of the great god." ^
In later times the epithet mad hheru appears to have had a some-
what difi^erent meaning from that given to it above, and at times it
may well be rendered " he whose word is right," and have
reference to the words of Thoth in the Judgment, when he informs
the gods that the heart of Osiris has been weighed with the
strictest care on the part of himself and his ape, which sits on the
support of the Balance, and that at the weighing the heart in one
pan of the Scales was able to counterbalance exactly the feather of
Right or the Law in the other, and that the case of the individual
under examination was a " right " one.
From many passages in the Booh of the Dead we learn of the
1 Chapters of Coming Forth by Day (Translation), p. cscvii.
410 THOTH
services which Thoth performed for Osiris, and which he was to
repeat for the benefit of every man who was acquitted in the
Judgment. In the xviiith Chapter is a list of calamities which
were averted from Osiris by Thoth, who gave words to the dead
god and taught him to utter them with such effect that all the
enemies of Osiris were vanquished. Thus he made him to triumph
(semaa-kheru I ^^ : | QA ) "in the presence of the great assessors
of every god and of every goddess ; in the presence of the assessors
who are in Annu on the night of the battle and of the overthrow
of the Sebau-fiend in Tattu ; on the night of making to stand up
the double Tet in Sekhem ; on the night of the things of the
night in Sekhem, in Pe, and in Tepu ; on the night of stablishing
Horus in the heritage of the things of his father in Rekhti ; on
the night when Isis maketh lamentation at the side of her
brother Osiris in Abtu ; on the night of the Haker festival when
a division is made between the dead and the spirits who are on
the path of the dead ; on the night of the judgment of those who
are to be annihilated at the great [festival of] the ploughing and
the turning up of the earth in An-rut-f in Re-stau ; and on the
night of making Horus to triumph over his enemies." In the
clxxxiiird Chapter the deceased Hunefer says to Osiris, " I have
come unto thee, 0 son of Nut, Osiris, Prince of everlastingness ;
I am in the following of the god Thoth, and I have rejoiced at
every thing which he hath done for thee. He hath brought unto
thee sweet (i.e., fresh) air for thy nose, and life and strength to
thy beautiful face, and the north wind which cometh forth from
Tem for thy nostrils, 0 lord of Ta-tchesert. He hath made the
god Shu to shine upon thy body ; he hath illumined thy path
with rays of splendour ; he hath destroyed for thee [all] the evil
defects which belong to thy members by the magical power of
the words of his utterance. He hath made the two Horus
brethren to be at peace for thee ; he hath destroyed the storm-
wind and the hurricane ; he hath made the Two Combatants to be
gracious unto thee, and the two lands to be at peace before thee ;
he hath put away the wrath which was in their hearts, and each
hath become reconciled unto his brother."
THOTH 411
In the xcivth Chapter the deceased addresses the '' guardian
of the book of Thoth," and says, " I am endowed with glory, I am
endowed with strength, I am filled with might, and I am
supplied with the books of Thoth, and I have brought them to
enable me to pass through the god Aker, who dwelleth in Set.
I have brought the palette and the ink-pot as being the objects
which are in the hands of Thoth ; hidden is that which is in
them ! Behold me in the character of a scribe ! 0 Heru-khuti,
thou didst give me the command, and I have copied what is
right and true, and I do bring it unto thee each day." In the
vignette of the chapter we see the deceased seated with a palette
and an ink-pot before him.
In the Pyramid Texts there is evidence ^ that Thoth was
connected with the western sky just as Horus was identified with
the eastern sky, and this idea is amplified in an interesting fashion
in the clxxvth Chapter of the Book of the Bead, where we find
that the deceased addresses Thoth both as Thoth and as Temu, the
setting sun, or god of the west. He is disturbed about that which
" hath happened to the divine children of Nut," for " they have done
" battle, they have upheld strife, they have done evil, they have
" created the fiends, they have made slaughter, they have caused
" trouble ; in truth, in all their doings the mighty have worked
" against the weak .... And thou regardest not evil, nor art
" thou provoked to anger when they bring their years to confusion
" and throng in and push to disturb their months ; for in all that
" they have done unto thee they have worked iniquity in secret."
The deceased adds, " I am thy writing palette, 0 Thoth, and I
" have brought unto thee thine ink-jar," and as he declares that
he is not one of those who work iniquity in secret places, at the
same time he clearly dissociates himself from those who do. These
words are followed by a very remarkable passage in which the
deceased, addressing Thoth under the name of Temu, asks the god
what the place is into which he has come, and he says that it is
without water, that " it hath not air, it is depth unfathomable, it
" is black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly therein.
1 Brugscli, BeUgion, p. 451.
412 THOTH
" In it a man may not live in quietness of heart ; nor may the
" longings of love be satisfied therein." A little further on in the
Chapter he asks the lord Tern, i.e., Thoth, " How long have I to
live ? " i.e., how long will my existence in this new world be ?
and the god replies, " Thou art for millions of millions of years,
" a period of life of millions of years," n ^ ^^zz:^ <=> ^ i /www W \
^ . ^, . . It is a remarkable fact that it is not Osiris, the
lord of life everlasting, but Temu-Thoth who promises the deceased
this coveted gift.
In the first part of the Chapter from which the above extracts
have been made Thoth is, clearly, appealed to in his capacity of
measurer and regulator of times and seasons, that is to say, as the
Moon-god, who is commonly called Aah-Tehuti, n - o ft Q cs/F "^ ,
or (1 fl I O i^5 " tlie great god, the lord of heaven, the king of
the gods," and " the maker of eternity and creator of everlasting-
ness." Under this form the god Thoth is depicted : — 1. As a
mummy, standing upon the symbol of inaM / — i, and holding in
his hands the emblems of " life," ■¥-, "stability," u, " sovereignty
and dominion," ^ | , and the sceptre 1; on his head is the
crescent moon, O, and by the side of his head he has the lock of
hair, symbolic of youth, \. 2. As a bearded, mummied human
figure with the crescent moon on his head, and the lock of hair
symbolic of youth. The head, however, has two faces, Avhich are
intended, presumably, to represent the periods of the waxing and
the waning of the moon.^ In some scenes we have Aah-Tehuti
represented in the form of a disk resting between the horns of the
crescent moon, and placed upon a pedestal in a boat similar to
that in which Ra is usually seen; sometimes an utchat, ■^^, is
placed over each end of the boat. In one interesting scene the
god Aah-hetep is represented with the head of an ibis surmounted
by the lunar disk and crescent seated in a boat, and a dog-headed
ape stands before him and presents an utcliaf ; it is noteworthy
that the curved end of the boat is notched like the notched palm
branch which symbolizes "years," ^. In the narrowest sense
1 For the figures see Lanzone, op. cit., pll, 36 ff.
THOTH 413
Aah-Tehuti symbolizes the new moon, and this is only natural,
for, as is well known, all calculations made by the moon in the
East from time immemorial have been based upon the first
appearance of the new moon in the sky ; but, generally speaking,
Thotli as the Moon-god represents the moon during the whole
month. On the other hand, the JJtcliat of Thoth, ^^ , indicates
the full moon, just as the TJtchat of E,a ^^ stands for the mid-day
sun ; this fact is proved by an interesting scene reproduced by
Signor Lanzone ^ from Brugsch, Monuments (Berlin, 1857). Here
we see the god Thoth, ibis-headed, standing by the side of a lotus
pillar which supports heaven, | , resting on heaven is a crescent,
and in it is the TJtcliat of Thoth, ^^. Leading up to the top of
the pillar is a flight of fourteen steps, of unequal length, which are
intended to represent the first fourteen days of the month, and at
the foot of it stand fourteen gods,^ the first of these being Tem, who
has his right foot resting on the first step, which is the shortest of
the whole flight. The gods who stand behind him are : — Shu,
Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, Heru-em-het-Aa, Amseth,
Hap, Tua-mut-f, Qebli-sennuf, and a god without a name.
In a more extended sense the TJtcliat of Thoth represented the
left eye of Ra, or the winter half of the year, when the heat of the
sun was not so strong, nor its light so great, and when darkness
remained in the skies for a longer period. This TJtcliat of Thoth,
or of Thoth-Horus, as it should more correctly be called, is
mentioned in the Pyramid Texts,^ where it is called the " Black
Eye of Horus" ; thus of King Unas it is said, "Thou hast seized
" the two Eyes of Horus, the White Eye and the Black Eye,
" and thou hast carried them off and set them in front of thee and
" they give light to thy face." ^ The White Eye here referred to
1 Op. cit., pi. 39.
2 The head and name of the fourth god are wanting.
3 Unas, 1. 37 ; the reference given by Brugsch is, like many others in his
Beligion, incorrect.
^ s^ I
°J^ ' I AAA/V\A <:IZ> ^\ [|Th
I
414 THOTH
is, of course, the sun. Thus we see that Thoth not only brought
the Eye of Rfi to the god, as we have already said, but that he also
established the Eye of the Moon-god, who was indeed only a form
of himself, and that Thoth was also in certain aspects identified
with Osiris, r|^ jj, and with Horus, ^^ ^^, and with Tern,
and therefore with Khepera. One other attribute of Thoth
remains to be noticed, i.e., that which is made known to us by
the xcvth Chapter of the Booh of the Dead^ wherein the deceased
says, " I am he who sendeth forth terror into the powers of rain
" and thunder, .... I have made to flourish my knife along with
" the knife which is in the hand of Thoth in the powers of rain and
" thunder." The short composition in which this passage occurs is
called the " Chapter of being nigh unto Thoth," and in the vignette
the deceased is seen standing before Thoth with both hands raised
in adoration.
From the above facts it is quite clear that the Greeks were
generally correct in the statements which they made about the
wisdom and learning of Thoth, whom they identified with their
own Hermes. They described him as the inventor of astronomy
and astrology, the science of numbers and mathematics, geometry
and land surveying, medicine and botany ; he was the first to
found a system of theology, and to organize a settled government
in the country ; he established the worship of the gods, and made
rules concerning the times and nature of their sacrifices ; he
composed the hymns and prayers which men addressed to them,
and drew up liturgical works ; he invented figures, and the letters
of the alphabet, and the arts of reading, writing, and oratory in all
its branches ; and he was the author of every Avork on every
branch of knowledge, both human and divine. According to
Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, vi.) the " Books of Thoth " ^ were
forty-two in number, and they were divided into six classes ;
books i.-x. dealt with the laws, and the gods, and the education of
1 On the Books of Thoth, see some interesting remarks by Brugsch in
Beligion und Mythologie, pp. 448 S. ; this distinguished Egyptologist thought he
had discovered the original hieroglyphic titles of many of these inscribed on the
walls of the temple of Edfil.
THOTH 415
the priests ; books xi.-xx. treated of the services of the gods, i.e.,
sacrifices, offerings, forms of worship, etc. ; books xxi.-xxx. related
to the history of the world, geography, and hieroglyphics ; books
xxxi.-xxxiv. formed treatises on astronomy and astrology ; books
XXXV. and xxxvi. contained a collection of religious compositions ;
and books xxxvii.-xlii. were devoted to medicine. An attempt was
made some years ago to include the Booh of the Dead among the
" Books of Thoth," but it is now quite certain that, although Thoth
was declared to have written some of its Chapters, it must be re-
garded as an entirely separate work and as one which enjoyed a much
greater reputation than they. How Thoth was able to perform all
the various duties which were assigned to him by the ancients it is
difficult to understand, until we remember that according to the
Egyptian texts he was the heart, i.e., the mind, and reason, and
understanding of the god Ra. The title given to him in some
inscriptions, <-=> ^^ : , " three times great, great," from which
the Greeks derived their appellation of the god 6 rptcrju-eyicrTo?,
or " ter maximus," has not yet been satisfactorily explained, and
at present the exact meaning which the Egyptians assigned to it is
unknown.^ It is, however, quite clear that Thoth held in their
minds a position which was quite different from that of any other
god, and that the attributes which they ascribed to him were
unlike the greater number of those of any member of their
companies of the gods. The character of Thoth is a lofty and a
beautiful conception, and is, perhaps, the highest idea of deity ever
fashioned in the Egyptian mind, which, as we have already seen,
was somewhat prone to dwell on the material side of divine
matters. Thoth, however, as the personification of the mind
of God, and as the all-pervading, and governing, and directing
power of heaven and of earth, forms a feature of the Egyptian
religion which is as sublime as the belief in the resurrection of
the dead in a spiritual body, and as the doctrine of everlasting
life.
1 A nnmber of valuable facts have been collected on the subject generally by
Pietschmann, in his Hermes Trismegistus, nach aegyptisclien, griechischen unci
orientalischen Ueherliefungen, 1875.
416 MAAT
The goddess Maa, or Maat, ^,■=^^5 ^^ ^ ^ h\v
Closely connected with Tlioth, so closely in fact that she may
be regarded as the feminine counterpart of the god, is the goddess
Maat, who stood with Thoth in the boat of Ra when the Sun-god
rose above the waters of the primeval abyss of Nu for the first
time. The type and symbol of this goddess is the ostrich feather,
[S, which is always seen fastened to her head-dress, and is some-
times seen in her hand. She is represented in the form of a woman
seated, or standing, "S, and she holds the sceptre, I, in one hand,
and ■?-, the emblem of "life," in the other; in many pictures of
her she is provided with a pair of wings which are attached one to
each arm, and in a few cases she has the body of a woman with an
ostrich feather for a head.
The reason for the association of the ostrich feather with Maat
is unknown, as is also the primitive conception which underlies the
name, but it is certainly very ancient, and probably dates from
predynastic times. The hieroglyphic ^=^, which also has the
phonetic value of Maat, is described by some as a " cubit," i.e., the
measure of a cubit, and by others as a " flute," which would,
presumably, be made of a reed. We see, however, that the god
Ptah usually stands upon a pedestal made in the shape of ^=i, and
that figures of the god Osiris stand upon pedestals of similar form,
and as we have no reason for supposing that the figures of these
two gods were placed upon flutes it is tolerably certain that -c=i
must mean something else besides flute. We know that Ptah of
Memphis was the god of artificers in general and of workers in
metal and of sculptors in particular ; it is far more likely that the
form of his pedestal, /=j, was intended to represent some tool
which was used by sculptors and carvers, e.g., a chisel, or the
identification of the object as a " cubit " may be correct if it
means that it Avas some instrument used for measuring purposes.
About the meaning of the word maat ^^ ^ (| ' ? there is, fortunately,
no difiiculty, for from many passages in texts of all periods we
CONCEPTIONS OF MAAT 417
learn that it indicated primarily " that which is straight," and it
was probably the name which was given to the instrument by
which the work of the handicraftsman of every kind was kept
straight ; as far as we can see the same ideas which were attached
to the Greek word KavMv (which first of all seems to have meant
any straight rod used to keep things straight, then a rule used by
masons, and finally, metaphorically, a rule, or law, or canon, by
which the lives of men and their actions were kept straight and
governed) belong to the Egyptian word mactt. The Egyptians
used the word in a physical and a moral sense, and thus it came to
mean " right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just,
steadfast, unalterable," etc.; hheshet macit is "real lapis-lazuli " as
opposed to blue paste ; shes madt means " ceaselessly and regularly,"
em un madt indicates that a thing is really so, the man who is
good, and honest is madt, the truth {madt) is great and mighty,
and " it hath never been broken since the time of Osiris " ; finally,
the exact equivalent of the English words " God will judge the
right " is found in the Egyptian pa neter dpu pa madt,
V%x^ ^^ =>
1
The goddess Maat was, then, the personification of physical
and moral law, and order and truth. In connexion with the Sun-
god Ra she indicated the regularity with which he rose and set in
the sky, and the course which he followed daily from east to west.
Thus in a hymn to Ra we read, " The land of Manu (i.e., the West)
" receiveth thee with satisfaction, and the goddess Maat embraceth
" thee both at morn and at eve;" " the god Thoth and the goddess
" Maat have written down thy daily course for thee every day ; "
" may I see Horus acting as steersman [in the boat of Ra] with
'' Thoth and Maat, one on each side of him." ^ In another hymn
Qenna says, " I have come to thee, 0 Lord of the gods, Temu-
" Heru-khuti, whom Maat directeth ; " Amen-Ra is said to " rest
upon Maat," i.e., to subsist by Maat; Ra is declared to "live by
Maat ; " Osiris " carries along the earth in his train by Maat in his
name of Seker." In her capacity of regulator of the path of the
1 Papyrus of Ani, slieet 1.
E e
418 HALL OF MAAT
Sun-god Maat is said to be the " daughter of Rii," and the '' eye of
Ra," and " lady of heaven, queen of the earth, and mistress of the
Underworld," and she was, of course, " the lady of the gods and
goddesses." As a moral power Maat was the greatest of the
goddesses, and in her dual form of Maati, f)f) J| Jj, i.e., the Maat
goddess of the South and the North, she was the lady of the
Judgment Hall, and she became the personification of justice,
who awarded to every man his due ; judging by some vignettes
which represent the weighing of the heart she took at times the
form of the Balance itself. The hall in which Maat sat in double
form to hear the " confession " of the dead is often depicted in
connection with the cxxvth Chapter of the Book of the Dead,
and we see that it was spacious, and that the cornice thereof
was formed of uraei and of feathers symbolic of Maat. In the
centre of it is a god with both hands stretched out over a
lake, and at each end of the hall is seated an ape before a pair
of scales.
Anubis was the guardian of the door at the end by
which the deceased entered, and which was called Khersek-Shu,
,,_^ ^ P V "v^ ' ^^® ^^^^ *^^ *^^® ^^^^^ ^^^ called Neb-Maat-
heri-tep-retui-f, ^^37 ^ i ""X f f - ? ^^^ tl^e other leaf
Neb-pehti-thesu-menmenet, ^^1:7 — ^ f^, f^ ""^^"^ ^ /wwv^ '^^ 1 .
These names had to be learnt and uttered by the deceased before
he was allowed to enter the Hall of the Maati goddesses, ^ 1 ^
^:PPI («'•' ^lWk\l)- ^^hen he arrived inside^
Hall he found assembled there the Forty-two Assessors or Judges
drawn up in two rows, each of which contained twenty-one Judges,
one on each side of the length of the Hall. Before each of these
he was obliged to make a solemn declaration that he had not
committed a certain sin ; these forty-two denials are commonly
known as the "Neo:ative Confession." ^ The names of the Assessors
■'O'
1 An English translation Avill be found in my Chapters of Coming Forth by
Lay, p. 193 fe.
ASSESSORS
according to the Papyrus of Neb
30) are as follows : —
OF MAAT 419
seni (Brit. Mus., No. 9,900, sheet
1. Usekht-nemmat,
2. Hept-shet, |°r
3. Fenti, ^()()^.
4. Am - khaibetu, -
5. Neha-hau, ^
6. Rerti,
7. Maati-f-em-tes
\7
^ 111"
X
nrrni
W
8. Neba-per-em-khetkhet, \\\\\
9. Set-kesu,
10. Uatch-nes,
A
\> X
I .
11. Qerti,
^ o o
I I I
12. Hetch-abehu, ^-f^ o
13. Am-senf, -[]- ^ ^ '
14. Am - beseku, 4 - ^^^ ^
15. Neb-Maat, -w^ ^ => fi ;
JP
17. Aati, o'^^^lfj-
18. Tutu-f, c^^t^^^.
19. Uamemti,-^'^
20. Maa-an-f,
I
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
H eri-seru,
Khemi, ®
Shet-kheru, ^^"^^
/VVVVVN
Nekhen, 0
Ser-khera,
Basti, ^l^.
Hra-f-lia-f, j'
Ta-ret, <=,
Kenemti,
^
i^
^ D
An-hetep-f, A
Neb-hrau, ^37-
Serekhi, "^
Neb-abui, ^^c:7 -Ujix >^ w
Nefer-Tem, J^^|.
Tem-sep, ^^^@|.
Ari-em-ab-f, -<2>- ^^^^ '^
Ahi-mu (?), q I l]n "^
ITtu - rekhit, { ^ | *
AWSAA
Neheb - nefert, Ik | J
Neheb.kau,\yxU|
X
Tcheser-tep,
\=^
I
An-a-f,
1
420 ASSESSORS OF MAAT
Even when the deceased had satisfied the Forty-two Assessors
he could not pass out of the Hall of Maati unless he knew the
magical names of the various parts of the door which opened into
the reo;ions of the blessed. In the address which he makes to the
gods collectively, and which is usually considered to have been
made after the Negative Confession, he summarizes his good deeds,
and declares to the god Osiris, whom he calls the " lord of the
Atef crown," that he has done Madt, and purified himself with
Madt, and that none of his members lack Madt. He tells how he
has been to the " Field of the Grassho]Dpers," and how he has
bathed in the pool wherein the sailors of Ra bathe, and describes
all the things which he has done, including the finding of a sceptre
of flint in the " furrow of Maat." Finally, having satisfied all the
various jDarts of the door by declaring to them their magical names,
he comes to the god Mau-taui, ^,^ o f^ v^ ^^^ ^ J) , who acts
as guardian of the Hall of Maati, and who refuses to allow him to
pass unless he tells his name. The deceased says, " Thy name is
Sa-abu-tchar-khat," ^^ "^ dl) ' -^1 -^ ^ m' ^^^ demands
to be admitted, but the god is not satisfied, and asks him, " Who is
the god that dwelleth in his hour ? " In reply the deceased utters
the name Mau-taui, whereupon he is at once asked by the god,
" And who is this ? " and in answer the deceased says, " Mau-taui is
Thoth." On this Thoth asks the reason of his coming to the Hall,
and when the deceased has told him that he has come because he
wished his name to be written down by him, Thoth questions him
further as to the fitness of his condition and as to the identity of
the being " whose heaven is of fire, Avhose walls are living uraei,
^' and the floor of whose house is a stream of water." In answer to
these questions he says that he is "purified from evil things," and
that the being whose house is described is Osiris, whereupon Thoth
calls upon him to enter, saying that his name shall be " mentioned "
or recorded.
Thus we see. how closely the attributes of Maat merge into
those of Thoth, and how the fate of the deceased depends ultimately
upon these deities. It was not, however, sufi^icient for him to pass
the Assessors, for beyond them stood Thoth with his final, search-
NEHEMAUAIT 421
ing questions ; Thotli spake the word which caused the universe to
come into being, and it was he who had the power to utter the
name of the deceased in such a way that his new spiritual body
would straightway come into being in the realm of Osiris. Thoth
in one respect was greater than Ra, and in another he was greater
than Osiris, but both from a physical and a moral point of view he
was connected inseparably with the Maat, which Avas the highest
conception of physical and moral law and order known to the
Egyptians.
The goddess Nehemauait ^ ^ -^ j LJU ^ ^•
Now besides Maat or the Maati goddesses we find that there
were other goddesses who were associated with Thoth in different
parts of Egypt, and among these is Nehemauait, who is described
as the dweller in Aat-tchamutet, L:^^ \ ^\ ^^, and as the "holy
and mighty lady in Khemennu " (Hermopolis),^ and the " mistress of
and " the dweller in Dendera," w=^ A ® . Thus we see that she
was the goddess of the great temple in the city of Thoth, i.e.,
Hermopolis, and that she had a shrine in Dendera, and in the
metropolis of the fifteenth nome of Lower Egypt, which is here
mentioned under its civil name " Bahut " ; the sacred name of
the city was Per-Tehuti-ap-reliuh, '""' ^^ ^ ? ^?©, i.e.,
" Temple of Thoth, the judge between the Behui (Hdrus and Set)."
The texts described her as the " daughter of Ra," and the manner
in which she is depicted proves that she was regarded as a form of
the goddess Hathor. In the examples given by Signor Lanzone ^
she has the form of a woman, and she wears upon her head either
the sistrum, i , or a disk resting between a pair of horns ; in one
picture a papyrus sceptre, I, rests on the palm of her right hand,
and a figure of Maat, ^ , on that of her left. A very interesting
= = 0
Dizionario, pi. 174; and see Bragscli, Beligion, p. 471.
422 NEHEMAUAIT— MEHURT
sketch also given by Signer Lanzone shows that her emblem was a
Hathor-headed standard, on the top of which was a sistrum ; on
each side of the sistrum is a uraeus with a disk on its head, p ,
and from each side of the face of the goddess hang two similar
uraei. The standard is held up in a vertical position by two men
who stand one on each side. Plutarch, as Brugsch has noted, says
that Typhon Avas driven away by a sistrum, which seems to
iudicate that the rattling of the Avires produced a sound that had a
terrifying effect upon that evil beast ; ladies of high rank and
priestesses are often depicted with sistra in their hands, and
though this fact is usually explained by assuming that those who
hold sistra assisted in the musical parts of the services in the
temples, it is very probable that they carried them both as amulets
and as musical instruments. Dr. Brugsch quotes two passages
from texts in which a royal personage declares that demoniacal
powers are kept away from him by means of the sistrum which he
holds in his hand. N^ehemauait is not mentioned in the Booh of
the Dead, and it seems that she is not an ancient deity ; she is
probably a comparatively modern form of some well known older
goddess.
From the texts of the late dynastic period we find that she
was identified with Meh-urt ^ and with the goddess whose name
.^^ A^/vv\^
<=r> "^w-^i P^ , is mentioned but rarely in the Booh of the Dead
(xvii. 76, 79; Ixxi. 13; cxxiv. 17), but the passage in the
xviith Chapter tells us exactly who she is. The deceased says
there, " I behold Ra who was born yesterday from the buttocks of
" the goddess Meh-urt," and as answer to the question, " What
"then is this?" we have the words, "It is the watery abyss of
" heaven, or (as others say), It is the image of the Eye of Ra in
" the morning at his daily birth. Meh-urt is the Eye (Utchat) of
" Ra." Meh-urt was originally a female personification of the
watery matter which formed the substance of the world, and her
name, which means " mighty fulness," indicates that she was the
1 The Methyer (Mc^ucp) of Plutarch.
NEHEIMAUAIT— MEHURT 423
abundant and unfailing source of the matter of every kind which
was fecundated by the male germs of life of every kind ; she was,
in fact, a form of the primeval female creative principle, and in
some aspects was identified with Isis and Hathor. She, of course,
is a later conception than Nut, or Nit (Neith), of both of whom she
was also a form. In one of the representations of the goddess
figured by Signor Lanzone ^ she is depicted in the form of a
pregnant woman with full, protruding breasts, emblem of fertility,
but she usually appears as the great cow of the sky, either in the
form which is illustrated on p. 368, or in that given in the accom-
panying plate. Sometimes she has the body of a woman and the
head of a cow, and then she holds in her right hand a sceptre
round which is twined the stalk of a lotus flower which she appears
to be smelling ; the flower itself is between ^ , the symbols of the
South and the North, and is supposed to represent the great world
lotus flower, out of Avhich rose the sun for the first time at the
Creation. The usual titles of the goddess are "lady of heaven,
" mistress of all the gods, mistress of the two lands," but she is also
said to have " existed from the beginning," and to have helped
Thoth to create the first things which appeared in Khemennu or
Hermopolis. In primitive times the " weighing of words," i.e., the
examination and judgment of the dead, was believed to take place in
the Hall of Meh-urt, which seems to prove that in very early times
the attributes of Maat were ascribed to the great goddess, whose
form was the cow, and that the souls of the dead were thought to
be judged in the sky. The first conception of the Judgment was
probably physical, and it was not until the period when the cult of
Osiris became predominant that it assumed the character with
which we are familiar from the Book of the Dead. It would seem
that in the very ancient times it was the body and not the soul
that was the subject of examination by the celestial powers, and
this is what is to be expected in predynastic times when the
theory of the resurrection then current demanded a renewed or
revivified physical body.
Closely associated with Thoth in the performance of certain of
1 Op. cit., pi. 131 fe.
424 THOTH AND SEFKHET-AABUT
his duties as the god of letters and learning, was the goddess
T^ Jj , whose name is generally read Sefkhet-aabut, [1 ''^"^^
XXX J); the reading "Sesheta" has also been proposed for
the hieroglyphic sign, ^, which forms the symbol of this goddess,
but both readings are merely guesses, for the phonetic value of the
sign has not yet been ascertained, and even the sign itself has not
been identified. All that is certain about it is that in some
pictures of the goddess the sign seems to be compounded of a pair
of horns inverted over a seven-rayed star, or flower with seven
petals, supported on a standard. Dr. Brugsch believed that
Sefkhet-aabut was the correct reading of the name, and that it
either meant, " she who has inverted her horns," or, " she who is
provided with seven horns," the latter meaning being suggested by
the similarity of the first part of the name Sefkhet with the ordinary
word for " seven." From the pictures of the goddess and the titles
which accompany them it is quite certain what her functions
were. We see her wearing her characteristic symbols on her
head, with a close-fitting panther skin garment upon her body,
and in her hands she holds a scribe's palette and writing reed ;
in this form she is called " the great one, the lady of the house of
books," . . Thus she was a goddess of literature
and the library.
Elsewhere we see her without her panther skin garment,
holding a writing reed in the right hand, and the cartouche czz>,
symbolic of " name " in her left ; in this form she suggests the
idea of being a kind of recording angel, not so much of the deeds
committed by man, but of their names, of which she, presumably,
took note, that her associate Thoth might declare them before
Osiris. In the title which accompanies this picture she is called
" great one, lady of letters, mistress of the house of books,"
"^^^^^ liR ^ , "^^^ . .. In another scene ^ she holds a notched
palm branch in her hand, and she appears to be counting the
notches ; the lower end of the branch rests on the back of a frog,
1 For all these pictures see Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 340.
SEFKHET-AABUT 425
seated upon Q, the emblem of "eternity," and from the upper
end hangs the symbol of the double Set festival, L|| J . Thus she
appears in the character of the chronographer and chronologist ;
the use of the notched palm-branch as a symbol of the counting of
years takes us back to a custom which was probably prevalent in
predynastic times. In yet another scene we find the goddess
standing before a column of hieroglyphics meaning "life," and
"power," and "thirty-year festivals," which rest upon a seated
figure who holds in each hand •¥-, "life," and who typifies
" millions of years." In connection with this must be noted a
passage in a text in which she declares to a king that she has
inscribed on her register on his behalf a period of life which shall be
" hundreds of thousands of thirty-year periods," and has ordained
that his years shall be upon the earth like the years of Ra, i.e., that
he shall live for ever. In the Booh of the Dead (Ivii. 6) the deceased
says, " My mouth and my nostrils are opened in Tattu, and I have
" my place of peace in Annu, wherein is my house ; it was built
" for me by the goddess Sefekh-aabut (or Sesheta), and the god
" Khnemu set it up for me upon its walls." And again he says
(clii. 3), " The goddess Sefekh-aabut hath brought the god ISTebt,
" and Anpu (Anubis) hath called unto the Osiris Nu (i.e., to me)
" to build a house on the earth. Its foundation is in Kher-aha,
" its shrine is the god Sekhem, who dwelleth in Sekhem, according
" to that which I have written the renewal thereof, and men and
" women bring ofi'erings, and libations, and ministrants. And
" Osiris saith unto all the gods who are in his train, and who
" journey [with him], ' Behold ye the house which hath been built
" ' for a spirit who is well-equipped, and who cometh daily to
" ' renew himself among you.' " In the clxixth Chapter (line 18)
the goddess is said to be seated before the deceased, and the
goddess Sa protects his members.
These passages show that Sefekh-aabut was supposed to be
the "goddess of construction," Vm^ and she would thus be a
suitable counterpart of Thoth, and one fitted to carry out his
commands concerning the Creation. It is, however, certain from
many passages that her chief duties were connected with the writing
426 THOTH AND UNNUT
of history, and happy was the king who was fortunate enough to
have his deeds recorded by the fingers of the goddess herself, and
his abode in the next world built on the plan which she drew up
in accordance with her attributes as the inventor of letters, the
lady of the builder's measure, and the founder of architecture.^
In a text quoted by Brugsch she declares to Seti that her words
concerning him shall never be gainsaid, that her hand shall set
down in writing his fame after the manner of her brother Thoth,
and all according to the decree of Tem. She was identified with
the goddess Renenet, /vwwv ^ H, , and with Isis, and at Dendera she
is called the '' daughter of Nut ; " at Lycopolis she was regarded
as the sister of Osiris, and the mother of Heru-nub, "^ , or the
" Horus of gold."
Yet another goddess must be mentioned in connection with
Maat and Thoth, that is to say, Unnut, -^^ ^ , the lady of Unnu,
^^ (^ ' ^^^^ must not be confused with Unnut, the goddess of
the hours, who is depicted in the form of a woman with a star upon
her head. The former goddess has, on the other hand, the body
of a woman with the head of a hare, and she usually holds in each
hand a knife, ^^=>-. ; ^ sometimes she holds a sceptre in one hand,
and •¥-, "life," in the other. One aspect of her, i.e., that of the
goddess who destroys with her knives, was identified with Sekhet,
Y T)r^, and in this form she was the deity of the city Menhet,
ft g^ . From a passage in the cxxxviith Chapter of the Booh
of the Dead we may gain some idea of the antiquity of the goddess
Unnut, for towards the end of the rubric (line 38) it is said that
the Chapter was found in the handwriting of the god Thoth
in the temple of " Unnut, lady of Unnu," ^^ ,^ J)^
•^"O V®' ^y Heru-tata-f, the son of Khufu, i.e., Cheops, a
king of the IVth Dynasty. Thus it is clear that even in that
remote period a temple in honour of the goddess existed at
Unnu, i.e., Hermopolis, or the city of Thoth. Unnu, as we know,
was the chief city of the nome Un, the chief local god of which
1 See Brugsch, Eeligion, p. 474. " See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 52.
AP-REHUI 427
was depicted in the form of a hare, ;^ , and Unnut is the female
counterpart of the god Unnu, and was the old local goddess of the
metropolis of the nome.
In the vignette of the cxth Chapter of the Boole of the Dead
(Papyrus of Ani, pi. 35) we see the deceased standing with hands
raised in adoration before three seated deities, the first having the
head of a hare, the second that of a snake, and the third that of a
bull ; behind him stands the god Thoth with palette and reed, but
whether he is in any ^vay connected with the three gods cannot be
said. A hare-headed god is also seen as one of the group of
three gods who preside over one of the Arits in the Underworld ;
according to the Papyrus of Ani it is the first Arit, and according
to the Papyrus of Nu it is the second. At Dendera a hare-
headed god is seen wrapped in mummy swathings, with his hands
in such a position that they suggest his identification with Osiris,
and an attempt has been made ^ to show in connexion with this
representation that the hare -headed god Avas called Un, that this
name appears in the compound name "Un-nefer," the well-known
title of Osiris, that the hare-god Un was only another form of
Osiris, and that the name Un was applied to Osiris because he
"sprang up," like the hare, which, as the rising sun, is said to be
the " springer." According to this view the goddess Unnut would
be a female form of the hare-god Un or Unnu, but Brugsch's
opinion which makes her to be the goddess of the city of Unnu, or
Hermopolis, is more correct, especially when we remember that
the cities An, and Apt, and Behutet, etc., possessed goddesses of
the city which Avere called Anit, and Apit, and Behutit. We have
already seen that the goddess Maat had two forms, i.e., Maat of
the South and Maat of the North, and similarly we find that
Unnut had two forms, one of which belonged to Hermopolis of the
South, and the other to Hermopolis of the North, the ^^
Unnu me/it of the text, i.e., Hermopolis Parva, wherein Thoth
was worshipped under the form of Ap-rehui, \/ <:=> ^ ^^
together with his female counterpart Nehemauait.^
1 See Renouf in Trans. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. ix., pp. 281-294.
2 Brugsch, Beligion, p. 477 ; de Eouge, GeograpJiie, pp. 30, 102.
( 428 )
CHAPTER XIV
HATHOR, []-^"|, HET-HERT, AND THE
HATHOR, GODDESSES
T
"^HE goddess Hathor is one of the oldest known deities of
Egypt, and it is certain that, under the form of a cow,
she was worshipped in the early part of the archaic period,
because a flint model of the head and horns of the cow, which was
her type and symbol, has been found among the early archaic, or
late predynastic flints in Egypt/ The forms in which the goddess
is depicted are numerous, but this is not to be wondered at,
because during the course of the dynastic period she was
identified with every important local goddess, and all their
attributes, of whatever class and kind, were ascribed to her.
The oldest form of all is probably that of the cow, and this was
preserved, though chiefly in funeral scenes and in the Book of
the Dead, until the beginning of the Roman period. Het-Hert,
n <=^ i)) the name of the goddess, means the " House above,"
i.e., the region of the sky or heaven, and another form of it, ^1,
which is to be read Het-Heru, and which means " House of
Horus," shows that she was a personification of the house in which
Horus the Sun-god dwelt, and that she represented the portion of
the sky through which the course of the god lay. In the earliest
times Hathor, the 'AOcop of the Greek writers, t3q3ified only that
portion of the sky in which Horus, the oldest form of the Sun-
god, had been conceived and brought forth, and her domain was in
the east of the sky ; but at length she came to represent the whole
1 This is preserved in the British Museum, No. 32,124.
HATHOR 429
sky, and in so doing, she, no doubt, absorbed many of the attributes
of predynastic goddesses. In the text of Pepi I. (line 593) it is
said, " Every god will take the hand of Ra-meri in heaven, and
" they will conduct him to Het-Heru ( ^ ^) , which is in the
" heaven of Qebhu (/] Jl ||V ^ ^=^)? ^^^ ^i^ double shall be able
^' to make his voice (or word) take effect upon Seb." From this
passage it seems as if the House of Horus was only one special part
of the great watery mass of heaven which is generally known by
the name of " Qebh."
At the time when the Egyptians first formulated their
theogony Hathor was certainly a cosmic goddess, and was
associated with the Sun-god Ra, of whom she was the principal
female counterpart. In the theological system of the priests of
Heliopolis she became, as Brugsch says,^ the " mother of the light,"
the birth of which was the first act of creation ; her next creative
act was to produce Shu and Tefnut, that is to say, certain aspects
of these gods, for according to a very old tradition Temu was
their begetter and producer. Of the various forms in which Hathor
is depicted may be mentioned the following ^ : — As the " chief-
tainess," "f* ^ , of Thebes and the mistress of Amentet she is usually
represented in the form of a woman who wears upon her head a
pair of horns within which rests the solar disk ; as the lady of
Hetepet, ^ © , she wears the vulture tiara, with a uraeus in
front and five uraei on the top of it ; as the lady of Senemet,
""^"^^ ^, she appears in the form of a woman with the headdress
yYy , or with plumes and horns ; as the lady of Abshek, q J rm ^.^^^ ,
she wears a disk between horns ; as the great goddess of Dendera,
I , she appears in the form of a lioness, with a uraeus on her
head, and as a woman wearing X°/ and I) , or [|1 , or O and \/, or
X^ and [jl , or the sistrum, i , or ^ and \\, or Yf ^^^ 111 ? o^^ \/
and X°/ , and ^ , and [1] , and she usually carries a sceptre, 1 oi' I ?
1 Beligion, p. 312. 2 Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 314 fE.
430 HATHOR
in one hand, and ''life," ■¥-, in the other; as the lady of the
" southern sycamore," /| X , she has the head of a cow ; as
the lady of Annu she has on her head ^^2' ^^ ^^^^ goddess of
turquoise [land], i.e., the Sinaitic Peninsula, called " Mafek,"
Q — D o J she wears the crown of the north, >/ , or /Yy and \Jf ;
and in another form she wears the vulture head-dress surmounted
by a tiara formed of uraei, and above these is a pylon set among a
mass of lotus flowers and buds. As the " lady of the Holy Land,"
i.e., the Underworld, and Amentet, If ^ "^j she appears in the form
of a cow Avalking out from the funeral mountain, and she is some-
times reiDresented in the form of a cow standing in a boat sur-
rounded by papyrus plants which are growing up to a considerable
height above her body. As the cow-goddess of the Underworld,
however, she wears a long, pendent collar, and on the back of her
neck is the Mendt, (w , an emblem of joy and pleasure. On her
back also is a kind of saddle-cloth with a linear design, and the
whole of her body is sometimes marked with crosses, which are
probably intended to represent stars. Two other interesting forms
of the goddess which are illustrated by Signor Lanzone ^ represent
her holding in her hand the notched palm branch, which is usually
the characteristic of the goddess Sefekh-aabut, who acted as
assistant chronographer and chronologist to the god Thoth, and
from this point of view Hathor must be regarded as a female
counterpart of Thoth. Finally, she is represented as a sphinx,
wearing on her head the vulture head-dress, with uraeus and disk ;
the side of her body is made to resemble a part of a mendt, and she
rests upon a pylon. The titles which accompany this last form call
her " lady of Hetep, the eye of Ra, dweller in his disk, lady of
D -^^ I I
" heaven, mistress of all the gods," fcj
l-i-^ Y ^ i^ 111 ,T.-
We have already seen that the Avorship of Horus was universal
in Egypt, probably from the earliest period, and that in dynastic
times shrines which were specially consecrated to his worship were
1 Op. cit., pi. 325 &.
HATHOR 431
common throughout the country ; the texts prove that the worship
of Hathor was also universal, and that her shrines were even more
numerous than those of Horus. She was, in fact, the great mother
of the world, and the old, cosmic Hathor was the personification of
the great power of nature which was perpetually conceiving, and
creating, and bringing forth, and rearing, and maintaining all
things, both great and small. She was the " mother of her father,
" and the daughter of her son," and heaven, earth, and the Under-
world were under her rule, and she was the mother of every god
and every goddess. In all the important shrines of the local
goddesses she was honoured with them, and she always became the
chief female counterpart of the head of the com23any or triad in
which she had been allowed to enter as a guest. A clear proof of
this fact is given in the list compiled by the late Dr. Brugsch, which
showed the various names and forms she took in all the large
cities in Upper and Lower Egypt, and from this we see that she
was identified with Satet, jT Jj , and Anqet, a^/wvs ^ D ^ in
Elephantine ; with Ta-sent-nefert, ^ "^^ 1 ^ A ^^ Jt ' ^^ Ombos;
with Behutet, j I y> ^ J , in Apollinopolis Magna ; with
Nit, ^^l, Nebuut, ^ ^^^, and Menhit, _](i^lj^^, m
Latopolis ; with Mut, '\\ '^ Jj , and Nekhebet, 1. ^ J J) , in
Eileithyiaspolis ; with Rat-tauit, ^3 "' ^ Jj , and Thenenet,
^=[|.[|.^, in Hermonthis; with Mut, ^\, and Amenthet,
1/vwwv^^' ^^ Thebes; with Heqet, Jf O J, in Apollinopolis
Parva; with Isis, fj^J? and Anit, [iflfl^J? in Coptos ; Avith
Sefkhet - AABUT, in Diospolis Parva ; with Mehit - Teenut -
This ; with Isis and Khent Abtet, rfTk ^J'^^^Jj, in
Panopolis ; with Heqet and Anthat, ^ l () "^ Pn ? i^ Aphrodi-
topolis; with ISTit, Uatchet, |^^, Sekhet, ^^®^^, etc., in
Hypselis ; with Maat and Isis in Hierakonpolis ; with Mut and
432 HATHOR
Sefkhet-aabut in Lycopolis ; with Sekhet and Maat in Cusae ;
with Nehemauait, '^ ^ - — a ^ f]f) ^ 5' ^^^ Sefkhet-aabut,
and Meh-urt, =^|^>^, in Hermopolis ; Avith Heqet and
AsHET, "^ ^^ , in Ibiu ; with Pakhth, ^ ^:^ , at the Speos
Artemidos ; with Anpet, fl S q ^ ' ^^ Cynopolis ; with Uatchet
in Alabastronpolis ; with Hathor of Ox3^rinchus ; with Anthat and
Mersekhent •■ — r R ^ ^ji_ ^ , in Herakleopolis Magna; with Renpit,
■T J) , in Crocodilopolis ; with Khersekhet in Ptolemais ; with Isis
and Tep-ahet in Aphroditopolis ; with Bast, ^ ^ ^ ? Sekhet, and
Renpit in Memphis; Avith Nebuarekht-aat, '^37-^^^®'^
TTn J) , in Letopolis ; with Usert-heqet, ] ^^ ? zi ^ , in Prosopis ;
with Nit (Neith) in Sa'is ; with IJrt- Apset, ^ \/ ^ ^ ^ ^ ? ^^
XoU ; with Isis in Canopus ; with Uatchet in Buto ; with Tefnut
in Pa-Tern (Pithom) ; with Tatet or Tait, J^fjf]^^^ i^
Busiris ; with Khuit, Atjf]'^^? i^ Athribis; with Tetet,
dauo-hter of Ra, ft n "^ ^ , and Tefnut, in the form of a lion,
— /Wu'v^^
l\^ / .^^, and Hert, C\ , i.e., the female
counterpart of Horus, and Nesert, ^ ^ I40\5 with Iusaset,
■^ P Z! o ' '^^^ Nebt-hetep, Y r^ o 3 ' ^^^ ^'^^^''' " 1 o I '
and Repit, '^ (]!] ^ 5; with Khent-Abtet, ^ | ^, in Sele (?) ;
with Nehemauait, Tefnut, and Isis in Hermopolis; with Hat-
MEHiT, ^=^ QQ "^J? in Mendes; with Mut, Tefnut, and Khent-
Abtet, in Diospolis; with Bast, ^^^j in Bubastis ; with Isis
and Uatchet in Ammet, h /= ^^ ^ ; and with Septit, P ^ !)f] ^ ^^
and Khekhsit, ®® flfl ^ "iXi, in the nome of Sept. It is, then,
quite certain that in late dynastic times, at least, Hathor became
the representative of all the great goddesses in Egypt, and that
shrines in her honour were built in most great cities there. In
his valuable Dizionario di Mitologia Egizia (p. 875), Signor
THE SEVEN HATHORS 433
Lanzone has collected the names of a number of cities which
contained shrines of Hathor, hut the enumeration of them all ^
here would serve no useful purpose, because the identifications
of the goddess described above are sufficient to indicate the
universality of her worship.
A little consideration of the texts shows us that it was quite
impossible for any worshipper of Hathor, however devout, to
enumerate all the forms of the goddess which existed, and also
that some of them were considered of greater importance than the
others ; as a result we find that at a comparatively early period a
selection of the Hathors was made, and that it usually contained
seven. The Seven Hathors who were worshipped at Dendera
were: — 1. Hathor of Thebes, T ^. 2. Hathor of Heliopolis, f| £.
3. Hathor of Aphroditopolis, ® "i^-^ ^ . 4. Hathor of the Sinaitic
Peninsula, ^ °^^o ^ . 5. Hathor of Momemphis (Ammu),
(M(l<v>. 6. Hathor of Herakleopolis, I^""^. 7. Hathor of
Keset, \Tj ^ . These were represented ^ in the form of young and
handsome women arrayed in close-fitting tunics, and wearing
^ The f ollowiBg selection may, however, be of interest : — Arit, [I [1 ^
Akent, ^^ Z , Sekhet-Ra, f\l\f\ ^, Keset, "^^ S 5 Senmet, '^'^'^ ^ ^, Khanit,
f f ^ , Matchet, ^ - — fl ^ \J^ , Shetenu, ^^ £ , Akenn, rr ^ © ,
Khakhat (?), '^ '^ "^ '^ 2 , She-Tesher, ™ ^, Kepemit (in Syria),
^ O (X) 2 ' P^^"^^^^^ ^^ Ankh-tauit, I S I I Y == s © ' ^^^^STi,
^r©' ^'^''' It®' Tep-ahet, ^^@, Alkat, ^^J' ^''■
Menthu, I A 2^ Maati, Rp ^^ Sebti, ^ J ^©, Kennu, ^^®, Tcherutet,
^^n®' Sek, pS©, Per-Utchat, ^^@, Hes, j^~^ , Kenset,
'^'^ '^ , I^eferus, I "^^^ % P ©, Khekliuit, J ^ ®^ , Antet, \\ ^ rv£x^
Sennnt, 1112-
2 Brngsch, Mytlwlogische Inschriften, Leipzig, 1884, p. 801 ff.
E f
434 THE SEVEN HATHORS
vulture head-dresses surmounted by X^ ? and holding tambourines
in their hands. In the " Tale of the Two Brothers " ^ we find the
Seven Hathors acting the part of prophetic fairies, for in that
entertaining narrative they are made to come and look upon the
wife whom Khnemu had fashioned for the younger brother Bata,
and who " was more beautiful in her person than any other woman
" in all the earth, for every god was contained in her ; " but when
they had looked upon her, they said with one voice, " Her death
will be caused by the knife." Unfortunately we do not know the
districts which these Seven Hathors, ^ '^ ^^ ^^ o &l ' '
represented. The Seven Hathors mentioned by Mariette ^ com-
prise the Hathors of Dendera, [l,^^? Keset (Cusae), Nehet
S^A©, the Two Mountains, ^^^ (i.e., the modern Gebelen),
Eileithyiaspolis, -I* ^ J © ' ^^^ Mafek (Sinai), Kepenut ff O ^ q
(Byblos), and Het-seshesh, f (Diospolis Parva) ; thus it is clear
that the company of the Seven Hathors did not always include the
same forms of the goddess. In the Litanies of Seker ^ we have also
a " Litany of the Hathors," wherein are mentioned the Hathors
of:— 1. Tep-ahet. 2. Mafek and Thebes. 3. Thebes. 4. Nebt-
hetep. 5. Suten-henen. 6. Memphis. 7. She-Tesher ; here, then,
is a different group of Seven Hathors. In the six lines of text
which follow, Hathor is identified with the goddesses : — 1. Bast.
2. Sati. 3. Uatchet. 4. Sekhet. 5. Lady of Ammu. 6. Nit
(Neith) ; and after this we have addresses to the Hathors of
Thebes, Suten-henen, Tep-ahet, Nehau, Rehsau, Shet-Teshert,
Mafek, Aneb, Uaua, Ammu, Amem, and Hathor, lady of the " City
of Sixteen," x ^ ^ Jj R . f\, i.e., Lycopolis, in all Twelve Hathors.
If we had full information on the subject we should probably find
that each great city possessed its own selection of Hathors, and
that the forms of the goddess whose names were inscribed on
funeral papyri were only those which were popular with those who
caused such documents to be made.
1 Page ix., 1. 8. (Bii'cli, Select Papyri.')
- See Denderah, torn. 1, pi. 27 ; Brugscli, Diet. Gcog., p. 972.
3 See my paper in Archaeolo(jia, vol. Hi. (Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu).
HATHOR-APHRODITE 435
The Greeks identified Hathor with their goddess Aphrodite,
and there are many passages in the Egyptian texts which show
that they were justified in doing so. She represented not only
what was true, but what was good, and all that is best in woman
as wife, mother, and daughter ; she was also the patron goddess of
all singers, dancers, and merry-makers of every kind, of beautiful
women, and of love, of artists and artistic works, and also of the
vine and wine, and ale and beer, and, in fact, of joy and happiness,
and of everything which contributed thereto. She was identified
astronomically with the star Sept, 1 A ^ , or Sothis, which was
called the " second sun " in heaven, she was thereby connected
with the rise of the Nile preparatory to the Inundation, and she
appeared in the form of this star in the heavens in the neighbour-
hood of the sun in the second half of July. Sothis rose heliacally
on the first day of the Egyptian New Year, and when the Sun-god
Ra had entered his boat, Hathor, the goddess of the star Sothis, went
with him and took up her place like a crown upon his forehead.^
She was, as we have seen, both the wife of Ra, and the daughter of
Ra ; she herself was brought forth by the goddess Nut in the form
of a black-skinned, ^>'- i "^ , or blackish-red skinned child and
received as her name that of the last hour of the day, KhDcmet-
ankh, Q ^^ "^ 1^ IT # ' °^ W" T '^ Hathor, as lady of the
Underworld, played a very prominent part in connection with the
welfare of the dead, for without her friendly help and protection
the deceased could never attain to everlastino- life.
o
The position which Hathor held among the gods of the
Underworld is well illustrated by the following passages from the
Book of the Dead. In his hymn to Ra the deceased ofiEicer Nekht
says, " 0 thou beautiful being, thou dost renew thyself in thy
" season in the form of the Disk within thy mother Hathor," with
which words he refers to the goddess as a nature power. In the
Judgment Scene we find that she is one of the company of the
gods who watch the " weighing of words," and who afterwards
decree joy and felicity for the heart which has been weighed and
1 Brugsch, Beligion, p. 318 ; Lanzone, op. cit., p. 865.
3 Brugscli, MythologiscJie Inschrtften, p. 844 (Twelfth. Hour of the Day).
436 HATHOR OF THE DEAD
found just. When the deceased is face to face with the monster
Apep, Hathor is one of the group of gods consisting of Netcheb-
AE-F, ^JI'O'^^, Tem, Nentcha, Zl^i' ^eb, Nut, and
Khepera, who encourage the deceased to do battle with him, and
she cries out to the deceased, " Take your armour ; " but she, like
the deceased, is in terror of Apep and " she quaketh " thereat
(xxxix. 22). In the Chapter (xlii.) which describes the deification
of the members of the deceased, she becomes his two eyes, and he
declares, '' My eyes are the eyes of Hathor." Now Hathor was,
according to one myth, the star Sothis, A ^ , Sept, and she took
up her place in the face of Horus or Ra as his right eye ; another
myth which made her the night sky also made her the moon
therein ; hence the eyes of Hathor are the sun and moon, and the
deceased regards these as his own eyes in the text. In other
Chapters (lii., Ixiii.A, Ixviii.), she appears as the goddess who
provides the deceased with meat and drink, and thus we find the
following : — " Let me eat my food under the sycamore tree of my
" lady Hathor, and let my times be among the divine beings who
" have alighted thereon ; " and again, " In a clean place I shall sit
" on the ground beneath the foliage of the date palm of the goddess
" Hathor, who dwelleth in the spacious Disk as it advanceth to
" Annu, having the books of the divine words of the writings of
"the god Thoth; " and again, "Let me have power over cakes,
" and let me eat of them under the leaves of the palm tree of the
'' goddess Hathor, who is my divine lady " (Ixxxii. 7).
In the Hall of Maati the name of the left foot of the deceased
was "Staff of Hathor" (cxxv. 35), and a special Chapter (ciii.)
was composed with the view of enabling the deceased to "be
among those who are in the following of Hathor." Thus Ave see
that she was held to be sufficiently important to have a train of
attendant gods, or ministering angels, about her. In the vignette
of Chapter cxxxiv. Hathor forms one of the company of the gods
of Heliopolis, which here consists of Tem, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut,
Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Hathor, and Horus, the last named taking
the place of Set or Suti ; and in Chapter cxl. Hathor, with Tera,
Utchatet, "vi. j '^^ ^ ^^ ^ J)^ , Shu, Seb, Osiris, Suti, Horus,
HATHOR OF THE DEAD 437
Menth, <^=i ] i Bah, 11 a f ^ Z^ i) , Ra-er-neheh, 9 1 <=="
§®§, Thoth, Naau-tchetta (?) ^(j^^? Nut, Isis,
Nephthys, Neklit, ^g^, Mert, (?) ^^^p^, Maat, Anep, and
Ta-mes-tchetta, "^^ |t| 0 ^^5 are said to be " the soul and body of
Ea." In Chapter cli.A Nephthys addresses the deceased and says,
" Ra hearkeneth unto thy cry ; thou, 0 daughter of Hathor, art
" made to triumph, thy head shall never be taken away from thee,
" and thou shalt be made to rise up in peace." It was Hathor in
the form of a cow who received the dead when they entered the
Underworld, she gave them new life, and celestial food wherewith
to maintain it, and in the Roman period the personality of the
deceased is merged in that of the goddess in the funeral texts, just as
during the dynastic period it was merged in that of Osiris. Finally,
it is said in a passage quoted from a papyrus by M. Maspero^
which prescribes the placing of the " swathing of Hathor " on the
face of the deceased, "She (i.e., Hathor) shall make thy face
" perfect among the gods, she shall make thy thighs large among
" the goddesses, she shall open thine eye so that thou shalt see
" each day, she shall enlarge thy place in Amentet, she shall make
" thy voice to prevail over thy adversaries ; and she shall make
" thy legs to walk with ease in the Underworld in her name of
" Hathor, lady of Amentet."
In an interesting text in the Ptolemaic temple at Der al-
Medina,- on the western bank of the Nile opposite Thebes, we find that
Hathor is called Nubt, [J^, i.e., the "Golden One," and that she
is addressed as the " queen of the gods," and her adorer says,
" thou standest high in the south as the lady of Teka (Eileithyias-
" polls), and thou illuminest the west as lady of Sais. Thou
" appearest and thou art commemorated in festivals as Hathor,
" the great lady, the beloved of Ra in [thy] seven forms." Thoth,
we are told, comes to look upon her face, and he praises her
according to her desire, and she is built up by his words. As
1 Memoire sur quelques Pcqnjrus du Louvre, Paris, 1875, p. 104.
2 The Egyptian name of the place was ^^^ ^ '^^-^vaa ^37 I © , Kheft-hra-
en-neb-s, and the Greek Pasemis ; Brugsch, Diet. Geog., p. 574.
438 NEKHEBET
Nebt-hetepet she is glorious in heaven, and mighty upon earth,
and queen of the Underworld. As the goddess Temt she is the lady
of the " two lands," and of the red covering, and she shines in the
cities of Buto and Bubastis. It is evident from the above that as
the goddess of the Underworld Hathor was identified with the four
great and ancient goddesses, Nekhebet of Nekhebet (Eileithyias-
polis), Uatchet of Per-Uatchet, Bast of Bubastis, and Nit (Neith)
of Sai's, i.e., with the four typical goddesses of the four quarters of
the world and of the four cardinal points, and it is also quite
evident that this identification is the product of a late period,
when the earliest attributes of Uatchet and Nekhebet, etc., were
forgotten. It is, however, convenient to consider these goddesses
under the head of Hathor, and they will, therefore, be described
here, not because the writer regards the Ptolemaic identification
as the correct one, but because there is something to be said for it.
Nekhebet, 1 Jp^ \N , the goddess of the South.
From the hieroglyphic inscriptions which belong to the
archaic period we find that the kings of Egypt were in the habit
of placing before their names the sign ]^£ , by which they intended
to indicate their sovereignty over the South and the North ; it is
uncertain how these signs are to be read, but there is no doubt
whatsoever about their meaning. The vulture is the symbol of
the goddess of the South, and the uraeus is the symbol of the
goddess of the North, and down to very late dynastic times the
kings of Egypt gloried in declaring that they were sovereigns of
the country by virtue of the favour of the goddesses whose emblems
were the vulture and uraeus. It is tolerably certain that in
predynastic times the vulture was worshipped generally throughout
Upper Egypt, and that a particular form of the serpent Avas
venerated in the Delta ; the centre of the worship of the vulture
was in the city called Nekhebet, 4-0 \\ ^, or, c=^:= a ^ | -j* ® J '
which was named Eileithyiaspolis by the Greeks, and '' Civitas
Lucinae " by the Latins, and formed the capital of the third nome
of Upper Egypt, and the centre of the worship of the serpent was
NEKHEBET 489
Per-Uatchet, """" I ^ © ? *^6 Bovto<; of the Greeks and the Buto
of the Latins, and the capital of the seventh nome of Lower Egypt.
Nekhebet was declared to be the daughter of Ka, ^^^ , and also
the " divine wife of Khent Amenti," | ^ /wsaaa ^ ^ , The shrine
of the goddess was Nekhent, ^ , or, aaa/^v or, ^ _ , and its
site is represented by the modern Arab village of El-Kab ; in late
times Nekhebet lost all its political importance, and the neigh-
1 AAAAAA H
bouring towns of Ani, n hh © , and Senit, ^^^^^ © , came into
prominence in its place. ^ Nekhen, also written, j'^^^? i.e., the
" White Nekhen," was the town which contained the sanctuary of
the "venerable (or, holy) vulture," (] yj^ pi^ ^ ' ^^^ *^®
vulture goddess Nekhebet in the land of the South is distinctly, in
later texts, identified with Hathor.^
Nekhebet is usually represented in the form of a woman who
wears on her head the vulture head-dress surmounted by the white
crown, Q , the sign of sovereignty over Upper Egypt, to which are
attached two plumes ; sometimes she holds in one hand the sceptre,
I, and sometimes j, and in the other we see the symbol of "life,"
■¥-. Occasionally the sceptre is formed of a long-stemmed flower,
which seems to be a water-lily, with a serpent twined round it ;
this serpent is none other than the winged serpent, with the crown
of the South upon its head, which is as symbolic of the goddess as
the vulture. Nekhebet is also represented in the form of a woman
with the head of a vulture, and in a picture of her reproduced by
Signer Lanzone'^ she stands upon madt ^c:=], and holds a bow and
an arrow in her left hand. In the form of a uraeus Nekhebet took
her place, with her twin sister Uatchet, upon the brow of Ra, and
both goddesses devoted themselves to destroying the enemies of
the god ; this idea is alluded to in the winged disks which are seen
1 Brugscli, Bid. Geog., p. 352 &.
3 Op. cit., pi. 848.
440 NEKHEBET
sculptured over the doors of temples in Egypt, for on each side is
a serpent, that on the right, or south side, being Nekhebet, and
that on the left, or north side, being Uatchet. Nekhebet was,
astronomically, the western or right eye of the sun during his
journey in the Underworld, and Uatchet was his eastern or left
eye. As a nature power Nekhebet was a form of the jDrimeval
abyss which brought forth the light,^ and she is therefore called the
" father of fathers, the mother of mothers, who hath existed from
" the beginning, and is the creatrix of the world." In the bas-
reliefs in Egyptian temples she is usually represented with her
twin sister Uatchet, and also in coronation scenes, for it was most
important for a king to be crowned with the double crown, W^,
by these deities.
According to Brugsch, special rooms or chambers were set
apart in the temples of Egypt, near the sanctuaries of the gods
wherein Uatchet and Nekhebet were supposed to abide ; the
chamber of the former was on the west, or right side of the
sanctuary, and was called j;er nesert ~'*~^|lj or "house of
fire," and that of the latter was on the east, or left side of the
sanctuary, and was called j^er ur, or "great house," ^^=*,
And it is very probable that at the time of the coronation of a
king priestesses dressed themselves in the character of the two
goddesses, and that the one declared the South had been given to
him whilst the other asserted the same concerning the North. In
coloured pictures of Nekhebet Fakit, S iJll , we find that she
is painted of a light yellow, or almost white colour, which is
probably intended to represent the colour of the desert regions of
the South, and of the white light of the newly risen sun or moon.
From one aspect she was identified with Isis, the fertile nature
goddess, just as Uatchet was identified with Nephthys, who was
supposed to act the part of nurse to the ofi'spring whom Isis
brought forth ; in other words, Nekhebet was the mother of the
Sun-god, and therefore also of the king of Egypt, his son, and
Uatchet was his nurse. A passage in the text of Mer-en-Ra
1 Brugscli. Religion, p. 324.
UATCHET 441
(line 762) seems to connect Nekhebet with Annu, for we read,
" Thou protectest Mer-en-Ra, 0 Nekhebet, thou hast protected
" Mer-en-Ra, 0 Nekhebet, in the House of the Prince in Annu ;
" thou hast committed him to Am-hent-f, and Am-hent-f hath
" committed him to Am-sepa-f ;" ^ if this be so it is probable that
Nekhebet was identified with one or other of the local goddesses
lusaaset or Nebt-hetep. In an interesting text published by
M. Maspero^ an allusion is made to the natron of the city of
Nekheb, which was apparently much used in embalming the dead,
and it was believed that in consequence the goddess Nekhebet would
watch over them in the Underworld, and would change their faces
into things of beauty Avith two brilliant eyes of light. To make
certain of this result the " bandage of Nekheb " was laid upon the
forehead of every carefully prepared mummy.
UaTCHET, '^^ ^^ "^S^y "^^^ GODDESS OF THE NOETH.
Uatchet, or Uatchit, as we have already said above, is a
goddess who was worshipped under the form of a serpent, and the
oldest seat of her cult was at Per-uatchet, I Pn ^ ' ^^® Bovto?
of the Greeks, a city which was situated in the ''land of Uatchet,"
' ,^ i.e., in the seventh nome of Lower Egypt,
^hl
or Nefer-Ament, ''^f . The temple in which Uatchet was
venerated and its precincts are known in texts of all periods by
the name Pe-Tep, S^^, and from the frequent mention of this
double name in the Pyramid Texts it is clear that the shrine was
both very famous and very old. Uatchet was identified with Isis
l\-l\^^iiZ:\
2 The ^devorrjs of Ptolemy, and the Ptenetu of Pliny; see de Rouge,
Geographic, p. 41.
3 Memoire siir quelques Pcqyyriis, pp. 50, 83.
442 UATCHET
at a very early period, and there is abundant proof that Horus, the
son of Isis, was worshipped with Isis at Per-Uatchet ; we are, then,
driven to the conckision that Pe-Tep was a city with two distinct
divisions, in one of which Uatchet-lsis was worshipped, and in the
other Horus, and that Horus dwelt in Pe, and Uatchet-lsis in Tep.
Among the variants of the name worthy of mention are Pi-Tchepet,
D M °^ 2' andPi-Tep, D (1(1 ^ .^ In late dynastic times Uatchet
was called Ap-taui, i.e., ^' opener of lands," \/ ^^ ^ , but the exact
meaning of this title is not quite certain. Near the city of the
goddess was situated the Island of Khebit, © J \^ Z , or
^J^JS'^^'^Jl^ \^ ^r ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ rightly identified
with the island called Xe/A/xt?^ and Xe/xpe? - by classical writers, and
round about which were the papyrus swamps T^^^ h c^ | J ,
Na-ateh, the Natho of the Greeks, which play such a prominent
part in the legends of Isis and Horus. According to these, Isis
retreated to the papyrus swamps after she had conceived her child,
and she remained hidden in them until her months were fulfilled,
when she brought forth Horus, who afterwards became the
" avenger of his father ; " Set never succeeded in finding her
hiding place, because the great goddess had found some means
whereby she caused the papyrus and other plants to screen her
from his view, and the goddess Uatchet visited her and helped her
in her retreat.
In pictures and reliefs the goddess is represented in the form
of a woman who wears upon her head the crown of the North, %/ ,
and she holds in one hand the papyrus sceptre, round which
is sometimes twined a long snake ; in some examples she is seen
bearing in her right hand the crown of the North, ^ , which she
is about to place upon the head of a king. Occasionally we find
her in the form of a large winged serpent ^ with the croAvn of the
North upon her head ; her titles are " Uatchet, lady of heaven ; "
" Uatchet, lady of Pe, mistress of Tep, the august one, the mighty
1 Bmgsch, Diet. Gcoy., p. 215. 2 JUd^ p. 553.
•^ See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 58 f.
UATCHET 443
one ; " " Uatchet, lady of heaven, mistress of all the gods ; "
" Uatchet, lady of Nebiui, -a.- J (]() ^ wflf]©, lady of Neter-
"ta, I ^"^, lady of Per-Menat, ^^? ^^^ l^^y ^^ Amemt,
"~^ © ." Besides her shrines in these last named cities
i
one built in her honour seems to have existed in Sept, ^^. The
<=>©
views held about the goddess in connexion with the dead are well
illustrated by certain allusions made to her in the Book of the Dead.
In the xviith Chapter she is mentioned in connexion with a god
called Rehuj i y^ 't^ ' ^^^ ^^^® ^^ definitely identified with Isis
who is said to have protected her son Horus by shaking her hair out
over him, although Uatchet appears in the form of a serpent twined
round the stalk of a papyrus plant and is called the " eye of Ra."
In the xliind Chapter the shoulder of the deceased is said to
be the shoulder of Uatchet; in the Ixvith Chapter the deceased
says, " I have knoAvledge. I was conceived by Sekhet, and the
" goddess Nit (Neith) gave me birth. I am Horus, and I have
" come forth from the Eye of Horus (i.e., Ra). I am Uatchet who
" came forth from Horus. I am Horus, and I fly up and perch
" myself upon the forehead of Ra in the bows of his boat which is
" in heaven." In Chapter cxxxvi.A the deceased is said to be
the " lord of Maat (^_n "- \), which the goddess Uatchet worketh ; "
in Chapter cxxxvi.B he says, ''I am the spiritual body (sdh
" 58') ^^ ^^® ^^^^ ^^ Maat which is made by the goddess
" Uatchet ; " and in Chapter clxxix. he says, " The Enemy hath
" come to an end beneath me in the presence of the Assessors,
•' and I eat him in the great field on the altar of Uatchet ; "
finally, in Chapter clxxii. (1. 19) certain bones in the head of
the deceased are identified with those of the Uatchti goddesses,
i.e., Nekhebet and Uatchet. During the ceremonies connected
with embalming, the operator or priest addressed the mummy,
saying, " The goddess Uatchet cometh unto thee in the form of the
" living Uraeus (<=> ^ Pn , Ardt), to anoint thy head with their
1 Their = Uatcliet and Nekhebet.
444 BAST
" flames. She riseth up on the left side of thy head, and she
" shineth from the right side of thy temples without speech ; they
" rise up on thy head during each and every hour of the day, even
" as they do for their father Ra, and through them the terror
" which thou inspirest in the holy spirits is increased, and because
" Uatchet and Nekhebet rise up on thy head, and because thy brow
'' becometh the portion of thy head whereon they establish them-
" selves, even as they do upon the broAv of Ra, and because they
" never leave thee, awe of thee striketh into the souls which are
" made perfect," ^
In the Boole of the Bead Uatchet generally plays the part of
destroyer of the foes of the deceased, but her connexion with
Maat shows that she was identified with some one of the female
counterparts of Thoth. In a calendar published by Brugsch^ we
see that under the name of Apt, (1 , or, (1 ^ ^^S7 , Uatchet was
regarded as the goddess of the eleventh month of the Egyptian
year (Epiphi).
Bast, ^ j4, the Lady of the East.
Bast was the goddess jMr excellence of the eastern part of the
Delta, and the centre of her worship was at Per-Bast, or Pa-Bast,
or, J ^^, J ^ , or Bubastis, the capital of the
1 " o
Am-khent, -^__ , the seventh nome (Bubastites) of Lower Egypt ;
this city is often referred to by classical writers (Herodotus ii.
137, 156; Diodorus 16, 51; Strabo xvii. ; Pliny v. 9), and is
mentioned in the Bible under the name Pibeseth, riDTS (Ezekiel
XXX. 17). The site is marked by the ruins at Tell-Basta which
were carefully excavated by M. Naville, who made some interesting
discoveries concerning the great antiquity of the city of Bubastis,
and who published the inscriptions which are still to be found
upon the ruins of the great buildings which once stood there."^
1 Maspero, Memoire sur qiielques Papyrus, p. 82.
2 Astronomische und Astrologisclie Inschriften, p. 473, No. 11.
^ See Bubastis, Eighth and Tenth Memoirs of the Egypt Exploration Fund,
1891 and 1892.
BAST 445
In the version of Manetho according to Julius Africanus (Cory's
Ancient Fragments, p. 98), it is said that in the reign of Boethus,
the first king of the Ilnd Dynasty, a chasm opened at Bubastis,
and that many persons perished, but M. Naville found no historical
remains so old as this period on the site ; he has, however,
discovered on blocks of stone there the names of Khufu and Khaf-
Ra, kings of the IVth Dynasty, written in such a way as to prove
that the inscriptions were cut during the period of the Early
Empire. Of the kings of the Vlth Dynasty only the name of
Pepi I. is found at Bubastis, and in connection with this king it is
interesting to note that in his funeral inscription (line 569) his
heart is said to be the heart of Bestet, i.e.. Bast, J P^^^^-
This fact shows that the worship of Bast was already very old in
Egypt, at all events in the Delta, and that a definite position
was assigned to her in the theological system of the priests of
Heliopolis. In the text of Pepi II. (Sljy (oluj? it is said,
" 0 god of the double town ( | ) the double of Pepi is for thy
" two fingers ; Pepi hath swept off towards the heavens like a crane,
" Pepi hath scented out the heavens like a hawk, Pepi hath flown
"up to heaven like the grasshopper of Ra ; Pepi must not be
" repulsed, 0 king, there is no green herb for Pepi, 0 Bast
" (^^=1)]^^), and none hath made dances for Pepi [who
" standeth] like a great man at the door" (line 869). To find the
name of Bast in the Pyramid Texts is natural enough, for their
Heliopolitan editors introduced many local, and even foreign
deities into the companies of their gods ; in the Theban Recension
of the Book of the Dead, however. Bast and her city are very
rarely mentioned, and her name is entirely omitted from the list
of the gods mentioned in connexion with the deification of members
(Chapter xlii.).
In the " Negative Confession" (line 16) of the cxxvth Chapter
we have the mention of the assessor called Thenemi, ( ^, flu ZV,
A^AAAA Jl UIP^ 1 I
i.e., he who goes backwards, who is said to come forth from Bast,
^ 2, and an assessor called Basti, ^^ J\ (line 26), is said to come
forth from the city of Shetait.
446 BAST
The goddess Bast is usually represented in the form of a
woman with the head of a cat, but she also has, at times, the head
of a lioness surmounted by a snake ; in her right hand she holds
a sistrum, and in her left an aegis Avith the head of a cat or
lioness on the top of it. The form in which the goddess was
worshijDped in the earliest times was that of a cat, and her identifi-
cation with a lioness probably belongs to a comparatively late
period. From the inscription we find that she was also identified
with Rat, ^ , the female counterjDart of Ra, and with Temt,
s^^ I , the female counterpart of Tem ; she is often called the
" eye of Ra," and the " eye of Tem," and the Shetat, ^
i.e., the " Hidden one." According to one legend Bast was the
personification of the soul of Isis, ^^^ jj "^ W ^ ' ^^^ ^^^
worshipped as such in Bubastis, and it was only at " Bubastis of
the South," "^ -ifl ^ , i.e., Dendera, that she was regarded as
the female counterpart of Tem. From the fact that she is asso-
ciated with the god Sept, " the lord of the East," it is tolerably
certain that in one aspect as least she was regarded as a foreign
goddess, whose attributes and characteristics had been transferred
to her. As Temt, ."^ T ^, at Dendera, she was said to be the
mother of the lion-headed god Ari-hes, 5v7^ y -^^ i the lord of
Aphroditopolis, ^-f , the holy Sekhem, Y ' 1 D ' ^^^^ dwelt in
the temple of Bast of Dendera ; ^ her husband in this case was the
god An, I 3 , who was a form of Osiris.
At Thebes Bast was identified with Mut, the lady of Asheru ;
at Memphis with Mut and Uatchet, at Helioj^olis with lusaaset,
and in Nubia with Sekhet and Menhet, at a town in the Delta
called Sekhet, jjM "^©j ber name appears to have been Bare-
As t, J "f^' *^~^ il "^ Pn -^ ^^ ^'^^ ^^'® *^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ derivation of
the name Bast in Egyptian we must connect it with the word for
1 See Brugscli, Diet. Gvo<j., p. 208 ; UeUcjion, p. 332.
2 Lanzone, op. cit., p. 226.
BAST 447
"fire," hes J 1 fl, and regard the goddess as a personification of
a power of the sun which made itself manifest in the form of heat.
That this view is correct is certain from several passages in
Egyptian texts, wherein both Bast and Sekhet are described as
closely connected forms of a female personification of the heat and
light of the Sun-god, and wherein they are made to act as the
destroyers both of the enemies of the Sun-god, and of the deceased.
Thus of Sekhet it is said in the '' Book of Overthrowing Apep "
(xxvii. 15), "The Eye of Horus falls upon him cutting and
" hacking his head from his neck ; the goddess Sekhet tears out
" his intestines and kicks them on the fire with her left leg ; she
" places them on the fire and burns into him in her name of ' Set-
" usert-aa ' ( li | ' ^ S\ " - ) 5 she burns into him and
" drives out his soul from his body ; she obtains the mastery over
" him in her name of ' Sekhet ' (v ® Jj) ; and she overpowers
"him in her name of 'Khut-nebat' (''^^ ^^^^ ^ '^^^^^ JM'^iii'
" i.e., Eye of Flame) ; she consumes his interior and blazes in it
" with the flame of her mouth." Speaking generally, Sekhet
personified the burning, fiery, and destructive heat of the sun, and
Bast represented the milder heat which at certain periods of the day
and year encouraged the growth of vegetation, and the germination
of seeds.
That Sekhet and Bast are goddesses of fire is quite clear, for
they accompany Hathor in her character of the " Eye of Ra," and
as forms of the Sun-god they symbolize the heat of the late and
early summer respectively. It has already been said that Bast is
identified with Mut at Thebes, but we also find that at Thebes
Mut-Bast ^ is depicted as Isis, and we see her wearing upon her
head the feathers of the god Shu, )lf), and horns with the sun's
disk between them. The god of whom she is the female counter-
part is in this case Amen-Ra-Temu-Khepera-Heru-khuti, who is
represented with the head of a hawk wearing the crown of Shu ;
the ofli'spring of the two deities is Khensu, ^ i V <i^ * '^^^^®
1 See Brugsch, Beligion und MytJwlogie, p. 33-1.
448 FESTIVALS OF BAST
considerations lead us to the conclusion that Bast was, at all
events in dynastic times, a personification of the moon, especially
when we remember that Khensu was a lunar god. With the head
of a lioness, which is usually painted green, she symbolized the
sunlight, but when she is given the head of a cat her connexion
with the moon is undoubted ; Dr. Brugsch refers to Plutarch's
remark that the pupils of the eyes of cats become full and very
large at the time of the full moon, and it is probable that the
primitive Egyptians held the same view, and that as a result
they identified the cat-headed goddess Bast with the moon.
From another aspect Bast Avas regarded as exercising a special
influence over women Avho were with child, and she appears on
several occasions as one of the goddesses of the birth-chamber ;
her son Khensu was declared " to make women fruitful, and make
" the human germ to grow in his mother's Avomb," and he was
supposed to do this especially in his character of the " moon, the
light-bearer."
According to the Stele of Canopus, the chief festivals of the
goddess Bubastis were celebrated in the months of April and May,
and of one of these Herodotus (ii. 60) furnishes some interesting
information. He says : — " Such of this people as with entyre and
" afi"ectionate zeale most religiously obserue the feast at Bubastis,
" behaue and beare themselues on this maner. Certayne shippes
" being addressed, wherein infinite numbers of men and women
" sayle towards the city, in the meane season whiles they be in
" voiage on ye Avater, certaine of the women play upon drums and
" tabers, making a great sound and noyse, ye men on pipes. Such
" as want these implements, clap their hands and straine their
" uoice in singing to ye highest degree. At Avhat city soeuer they
'' ariue, happely some of the women continue their mirth and dis-
•' port on ye timbrels, some others raile, reuile, and scold at the
" dames of ye city beyond measure : many trauise and daunce
" minionly : other cast up their clothes, and openly discouer and
" beAvray their shame, doing this in all those cittes yt are neere
'^ adioyning to the riuers side. Being assembled and gathered
" together at Bubastis, they honour the feast day with principall
" solemnity, making large offerings to Diana, Avherein is greater
FESTIVALS OF BAST 449
" expence and effusion of grape wine than all the yeare besides.
" To this place by the voice of ye countrey are wont to repayre
" 7000 men and women, besides children, and thus they passe the
" time at Bubastis." ^ Of the city of Bubastis itself the same
writer says ^ (ii. 137, 138) : — " The noble city of Bubastis seemeth
"to be very haughty and highly planted, in which city is a temple
" of excellent memory dedicate to the goddesse Bubastis, called in
" our speech Diana, then the which, albeit there be other churches
" both bigger and more richly furnished, yet for the sightly grace
" and seemelynesse of building, there is none comparable unto
" it. Besides, the very entrance and way that leadeth unto the
" city, the reste is in forme of an Ilande, inclosed round about with
" two sundry streames of the river Nilus, which runne to either
" side of the path way, and leaning as it were a lane or causey
" betweene them, without meeting, take their course another way.
" These armes of .the floud are each of them an hundred foote
" broade, beset on both sides the banckes with fayre braunched
" trees, ouershadowing ye waters with a coole and pleasant shade.
" The gate or entry of the city is in heighth 10. paces, hauing in
" the front a beautifull image, 6. cubites in measure. The temple
" it selfe situate in the middest of ye city, is euermore in sight to
" those yt passe to and fro. For although ye city by addition of
" earth was arrered and made higher, yet ye temple standing as it
" did in ye beginning, and neuer mooued, is in maner of a lofty
" and stately tower, in open and cleare viewe to euery parte of ye
" city. Round about the which goeth a wall, ingrauen with
" figures and portraitures of sundry beasts. The inner temple is
" enuironed with an high grove of trees, set and planted by the
" hande and Industrie of men : in the whiche temj)le is standino- an
" image. The length of the temple is in euery way a furlong.
" From the entrance of the temple Eastward, there is a fayre laro-e
" causey leading to the house of Mercury, in length, three furlongs
" and four acres broade, all of faire stone, and hemmed in on each
" side with a course of goodly tall trees planted by the hands of
" men, and thus as touching the description of ye temple."
1 B. R.'s Translation, fol. 86a. 2 B. R.'s Translation, fol. 108a.
G g
450 NET OR NEITH
According to Brugsch,^ the great triad of the city of Bubastis
consisted of Osiris, Bast, and their offspring, who was called Heru-
hekennu, ^^ fi ^ c?) ? or JSTefer-Tem, or Bast ; their equivalents
in Heliopolis were Tern, lusaaset, and Nefer-Tem ; in Memphis,
Ptah-Sekhet, and Nefer-Tem ; in Thebes, Amen-Ra-Heru-khuti,
and Mut-Bast, and Khensu, or Horus, or Neb-aut-ab ; in Aphro-
ditopolis, Osiris- An, and Bast-Temt, and 'Ari-lies. In the Bu-
bastite nome were many temples and localities in which the
worship of Bast was paramount, and among such may be
mentioned Bairast, J ^^: <=> J '^ © , the modern Belbes, and
Netert, hi ^ , or | "^ © , where was preserved a thigh of Osiris,
^ n , shut up in a '' hidden chest." ^
Net, ^ ^^, oe ^ ^ , or ^ ^c=k, on ^ )<^,
THE Lady of the West.
Net, or Neith, was one of the oldest of all the Egyptian
goddesses, and it is tolerably certain that her worship was wide-
spread even in predynastic times ; many attempts have been made
to arrive at a decision about her earliest attributes by means of
etymological processes, but they are unsatisfactory because they only
illustrate the views which the Egyptians held concerning her in com-
paratively late dynastic times, and several of them only explain
the objects which the goddess is seen holding in her hands in
pictures. The examples reproduced by Lanzone represent the
goddess in the form of a woman, who wears upon her head the
crown of the North, V ; she often holds a sceptre, |, or T, in one
hand, and the symbol of life in the other, but sometimes the hand
which holds the sceptre also grasps a bow and two arrows, which
are her characteristic symbols. She once ^ appears in the form of
a cow with eighteen stars on one side, and a collar round her neck
from which hangs •¥■; on her back is a ram-headed lion with horns
and plumes, ^y , upon his head. The cow stands in a boat, the
1 Religion, p. 336. ^ gee de Rouge, Geograj)hie, p. 122.
3 Op. cit., pi. 175 ff.
NET OR NEITH 451
prow of which terminates in a lion's head with a disk upon it, and
is provided with wings ; the stern of the boat terminates in a
ram's head, and by the fore feet of the cow, which is described as
"Net, the Cow, which gave birth to Ra," ^ 1^^ l^f.
is an utchat, '^^ . In one scene she is represented with a crocodile
sucking at each breast/ In late dynastic times there is no doubt
that Net or Neith was regarded as nothing but a form of Hathor,
but at an earlier period she was certainly a personification of a
form of the great, inert, primeval watery mass out of which sprang
the Sun-god Ra, and it is possible, as Brugsch has suggested, that
the name Net may be akin in meaning to Nut. On the other
hand, if we connect her name with the root netet ^ ,
" to knit, to weave," and the like, we may accept the view of
those who describe Net as the goddess of weaving, and who
identify the signs, xix:, and ;czk, which are often seen upon
her head, with a shuttle. It is, however, quite clear that the
oldest and most characteristic symbols of the goddess were two
arrows and a shield, which at a very early period became the
recognized emblems, not only of Net herself, but also of the city in
which her chief temple was situated, and they also served as the
symbols which formed the name of the nome of which the
city Sais was the capital. Now since Net was represented by a
bow and two arrows, there is no good reason for doubting that she
was originally either a goddess of war or of the chase, and it is
probable that she was identified with a local wood- spirit, or
hunting-spirit, which was worshipped in the east of the Delta in
the predynastic period. In any case it is quite certain, when we
consider the attributes which are ascribed to her in the texts, that
she represents several goddesses who were the conceptions of quite
different periods of history and of stages of civilization. Thus, at
times, her attributes cannot be distinguished from those of Isis,
Uatchet, Sekhet, Bast, Mut, Nekhebet, and other goddesses, and
she was identified with one and all of them by turns.
The most ancient and famous sanctuary of Net Avas at Sai's,
, 8aui^ the capital of the fifth nome of Lower Egypt^
■^ Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 175, No. .3.
452 ^ET OR NEITH
which bore the name of ^i— In ff " Sapi-meht," i.e., " Sapi of the
North," and which was also called Het Net, c:. [1 ^, i.e., " House
of Net," and " Ast-Net," jj^ [j", i.e., "The seat of Net;"
a rare name of the city quoted by Brugsch ^ and de Rouge ^ is
"Sapi," fl()°^, ^^^ ~^f II- ^^^^ *®^*^ ^^'^^^ mention the
"temples of Net," [j T 1, that is to say, the temples of the gods
who were Avorshipped with Net at Sais ; the names of these
temjDles are : — Het-khebit, M \^ , Resenet and Mehenet, ^
/wXvN, Per-Ra, ^ , and Per-Tem, ^"^ . The ffreat temple of
Net at Sais must, of course, not be confounded with that of Sais of
Upper Bgyj)t, i.e., Esneh, which was called Per-Net-mut-kheper-
hetch, ^ctk'Vx ^ /) ©; the names of Esneh are Ani, | /wwva [1(| ©,
H ^
and Seni, ^'^. At Sais was held the 2:reat annual festival in
honour of Isis-Net, as recorded by Herodotus (ii. 59), and it is this
which is described by the same writer (ii. 62) in the following-
words ^ : — " In like manner meeting (as before) at the city Sais,
" there to accomplishe the rites and ceremonies due to the day, at
" the approche and neere poynt of the euening, they furnish and
" beset their houses Avith torches and lampes, which being re-
"• plenished with pure oyle mingled with salte, they giue tire to the
" weike, and suffer them to continue burning till the next
" morning, naming the day by the feast of lampes. Such as
" resort not to this feast, do neuerthelesse at their owne homes giue
" due honour to the night, j^lacing in euery corner of theyr house
," an infinite number of tapers and candles, the custome being not
" only kept at Sais, but spread and scattered throughout the
" whole region. But for what ende this night is held solemne by
" lighting of lampes, a certayne mysticall and religious reason is
*' yeelded which we must keepe secret."
After describing the place in the temple of Sais where Apries
1 Did. Grog., p. 1323. - Grographie dc la Basse l^gypie, p. 24.
'^ B. R.'s translation, fol. SQh.
NET OR NEITH 453
was buried, and mentioning the " fayre Chamber builte of stone,
" beauty fied with sundry Pyllers ingrauen like unto Palme- trees,
" being other wyse very sumptuously and royally garnished," and
the two " mayne posts in the middest of the chamber, betweene
" the which standeth a Cophine," and the " toumbe in the same,
" the name whereof," he says, " I may not descry without breache
" of Religion," Herodotus goes on to sjDeak of other matters
connected with Sai's, and says (ii. 170) : — "At Sais in the Temple
" of Minerva, beneath the Churche and neere unto the walle of
" Minerva, in a base Chappell, are standinge certayne greate
" brooches of stone, whereto is adioyninge a lowe place in manner
" of a Dungeon, couered over wyth a stone curiously wroughte, the
" vaute it selfe being on euery side earned with most exquisite
" arte, in biggnesse matchinge with that in Delos, which is called
" Trochoides. Herein euery one counterfayteth the shadowes of
*' hys owne affections and phantasies in the nyghte season, which
" the Aegyptians call Mysteryes ; touchinge whiche, God forbid, I
" should aduenture to discouer so much as they vouchsafed to tell
" mee." ^ The "Mysteries" here referred to were probably the
ceremonies performed in connexion with the annual commemoration
of the sufferings and death of Osiris, who, according to an old
legend, was buried at Sais.
Passing now to consider the antiquity of the cult of Net at
Sais we find much to prove that the worship of this goddess dates
from the latter part of the predynastic period. The earliest form
of Net's name is found on an ivory cover of a box and on an ivory
vase,^ where it occurs in connexion with hetep, and so serves as a
constituent part of the proper name Net-hetep, v^ — ^^ • Now,
Net-hetep, we know, was connected with the early king Sma, and
she appears to have been the wife of king Ck^, Aha, who has been
commonly, but on insufficient evidence, identified with Mena, the
first historical king of Egypt. But whether Aha is Mena or not
matters little for our purpose here, for it is quite certain that both
he and Sma flourished about the beginning of the period of the
^ B. R.'s translation, fol. 1166,
* See Petrie, Boyal Tombs, ii., pp. 4-20, and pi. ii.
454 NET OR NEITH
1st Dynasty, and this being so the name of the goddess which
forms part of the name of the queen Net-hetep must also be as
old. Thus it is clear that even in the 1st Dynasty the cult of Net
must have been of considerable antiquity. During the first four
dynasties the goddess possessed sanctuaries in many parts of
Egypt, and several of her priests and priestesses were buried in
mastaba tombs in and near Sakkara. M. Mallet quotes ^ an
interesting passage from the sarcophagus of Apa-iinkh in which
she is addressed together with Anunu, (1^0 E©^? and Nesert,
— *^ ^ L. 5 who are two very ancient goddesses, and in which it is
declared that she came forth from the god, and that the god came
forth from her.- We thus see that in the IVth Dynasty she was
thought to be at once the mother and the daughter of the Sun-god
Ra, and that she had more than one form, and possessed also the
power to conceive and bring forth the new Sun-god daily by
means of the divine and magical formulae with which she was
provided. Among her early titles is that of Apt-uat, i.e., " Opener
of the ways," \/ £535^ £55, which seems to suggest that she
was in some way a female counterpart of Anubis.
In the text of Unas (line 67) we find the " temples of Net,"
, mentioned, side by side with the city of Tep, ^ , and
the name of the goddess is coupled with that of Tatet, D ^^ >
who was supposed to dress the dead ; thus the passage clearly
proves that Net was believed to perform some important ceremonies
in connexion with the preservation of the dead, and it would
seem that these were of a magical character. We may note in
passing that in the late " Ritual of Embalmment," published by
M. Maspero,^ it is directed that a piece of linen, upon which were
drawn or painted figures of Hapi and Isis, be placed in the hand
of the deceased, and that Isis is identified with Neith. This piece
1 Le Cult de Neit a Sais, Paris, 1888, p. 104.
3 Compare also ^^; ^^^^ ^ ffl ] ffl . £
* Memoire snv qvelqiies Papyrus du Louvre, p. 90.
NET OR NEITH 455
of linen was intended to serve as an amulet, and to bring to the
mummy the protection of Net, who is referred to under the name
of Isis. In the text of Unas (line 597) we have the following
address : — " Homage to thee, 0 Horus, in the regions of Horus ;
"homage to thee, 0 Set, in the regions of Set; homage to thee,
'' 0 Aarer Ih "^ ^^^^) i^ Sekhet-Aarer ; ^ homage to thee, 0
" Netetthaab Q^ l ^ '^) ' *^°^^ ^^^ ^^ *^®^® ^^^^' ^^^^ ^^^ ^^® ^^
" the Great Temple, wherefrom the voice of Unas goeth not out.
''Take off your apparel in order that Unas may see you as
"Horus seeth Isis, and that Unas may see you as Nehebu-kau
" (/wwNA I 1J\ J%4y5)) ^®®*^ Selqet; and that Unas may
" see you as Sebek seeth Net, and that Unas may see you as Set
"seeth Netetthaab." A little further on (lines 620-627) we have
another reference to Net and her son Sebek in these words, " Unas
(ffh ^ ^
a °^ ZZ "^ S II [] '^ ) ? ^^cl this Unas is Sebek with the green
"feather (■jTl'^lB)? ^^^^^ watcheth and who raiseth up his
" forehead, and who is the white one who cometh forth from the
" thigh[s] of Khebset-urt (^ J "T" ^) ' ^'^^ ^^ ^"^ *^® ^^^^**
" Unas hath come to his pools which are on the banks of the canal
"(% Z;5 11 Z^^ ofMeht-urt ("^ ^ ^) , at the place where
" offerings flourish, and in the fields which are in the horizon, and
" he hath made to flourish his garden on the banks of the horizon.
" Unas hath brought the crystal {^=^ | ^ ffif ) to the Great
" Eye which is in the field. Unas hath taken his place in the
" horizon, he riseth like Sebek, the son of Net (^ ^ ^j , ^^
" eateth with his mouth, he voideth water," etc. In the text
of Teta (line 204) Net is mentioned in connection with Isis,
Nephthys, and Serqet-Hetu, | Y RT ^P ^^ i ^ ^ ^
as one of the four goddesses who shot forth flame, |i^^ U^'
_2^
456 NET OR NEITH
and worked "protection," °m«-, on behalf of the god Nu, ^^,
when he was seated on his throne.
These same four goddesses also appear in connection with the
Four Children of Horus, whom they assisted in protecting by
magical means the various parts of human bodies which were
placed in " Canopic jars." Thus Isis says, " I conquer the foe, I
"make protection for Amseth who is in me"; Nephthys says,
" I hide the hidden thing, and I make protection for Hapi who is
" in me" ; Net says, " I pass the morning and I pass the night of
"each day in making protection for Tuamutef who is in me";
Serqet says, " I employ each day in making protection for Qebh-
" sennuf who is in me." ^ The Egyptian word used here to
express the meaning of " protection " is sa, <=mi°, and the character
represents a knot of a peculiar kind ; the part which knots and
cords tied in various ways have always played in magical
ceremonies is too well known to need description, and it need
only be pointed out here that the sign "^m^ indicates that the
protection which Net exercised on behalf of the dead must have
been of a magical character. This view is supported by a passage
in the text of Unas (1. 271 fF.) in which we find Net mentioned in
connection with the goddesses Ana, l\ [] ^ , Ilrt, <cz=> ^ ,
Nesert, — -^ ^ ^, and Urt-hekau, <==> § 4, y; now Urt-
hekau is distinctly said to be the "protective power of the Eye of
Horus," and thus the attributes of Net and of the other goddesses
must be of a kindred nature. In the text of PeiDi I. (1. 572), in
the passage relating to the deification of the members of the
deceased it is said that the thighs of Pepi are " Net and Serqet,"
n « ^ ; but in the Theban Recension of the Book of the
Dead (Chapter xlii. 11), it is the fore-arms of the deceased which
are identified with the fore-arms of the lady of Sai's, i.e., Net. In
the Theban Recension the deceased declares (Ixvi. 2) that he was
conceived by the goddess Sekhet, and that the goddess Net gave
birth to him. In Chapter Ixxi. 15, we read, " Behold, the god of
" One Face is with me. The god Sebek hath stood up within his
^ For the texts see my Miiiiimy, p. 199 ff.
NET OR NEITH 457
" ground, and the goddess Net hath, stood up within her planta-
"tion"; and elsewhere (cxiv. 5; cxvi. 2) we read that she
shineth in the city of Matchat, or Mentchat. In Chapter cxvi. 4,
the deceased says, " 0 ye gods who dwell in Khemennu, ye know
me even as I know the goddess Net " ; and in Chapter cxlv. 81,
he says, " I have entered into the house of Astes, and I have made
" supplication to the Khati gods and to Sekhet in the Temple of
" Net." In the Rubric to Chapter clxiii., which has for its vignette
a serpent on legs, and two utcUats on legs, it is ordered that in the
pupil of one iitchat there shall be drawn a figure of the " god of the
lifted hand " with the face of Net, and having plumes and a back
like unto a hawk. From one aspect at least it is clear that Net must
have been a form of the power of the Eye of Horus, as well as of
Isis, his mother ; her son Sebek is a local form of Horus, and it is
probable that the two crocodiles, which are seen accompanying her,
and which have been already mentioned, are in some \YSij connected
with the god Henti, "^^^r^/l, whose symbols are two crocodiles.
Henti, there is every reason to believe, was a form of Osiris. It is,
however, possible that one of the crocodiles may represent Horus,
or Osiris, and the other Hetch-nefer-Sebeq, 6* I O J ^ , the son of
Net. '^^
We have, unfortunately, no description of the ceremonies
connected with the worship of Net, but there is good reason for
believing that they were of a mystic character, and that they were
modified from time to time in accordance with the chan2:e of beliefs
of the priests in respect of the attributes of the goddess. Origin-
ally its chief characteristics must have been those of a local Delta
or Libyan goddess of nature, and it is probable that it included
ceremonies which were intended to represent the various processes
of generation and reproduction. This view is supported by several
of the titles which are given in Egyptian texts to her and to her
kindred goddesses. Thus as Isis she was the first to give birth to a
god, T^T^T ] iJl "^ ; ^ as Hathor she was the " great cow which
gave birth to Ra ; " and she is called ^' the great goddess, the mother
1 See Mallet, Le Cidte de Nelt, p. 140.
458 NET OR NEITH
" of all the gods," and " Rat (i.e., the female Sun), the lady of
" heaven, the mistress of all the gods, who came into being in the
" beginning." In a text quoted by M. Mallet she is actually called
" One," Pp. , a fact which proves that at a certain period of her
history she was to goddesses what Ra Avas to gods. A certain
amount of light is thrown upon the history of Net by the inscrip-
tion ^ on the famous shrine-bearing statue of Utchat-Heru now
preserved in the Vatican, but it must be remembered that this
monument is not older than the early part of the Persian period.
Utchat-Heru was an official of very high rank in Sai's, and he was
high-priest of Net, and as such bore the official title of Ur-sun,
"^^ -^ , i.e., " great one of knowledge." He was commander of
the vessels of Aahmes 11. (Amasis), and when Cambyses came to
Egypt and visited Sai's after his conquest of the country, it was
Utchat-Heru who received him, and explained to him the antiquity
and greatness of the goddess Net, and conducted him through the
various sanctuaries which were grouped together in her temple.
In the course of his conversation with the king he told him that it
was Net, the mighty mother, who had given birth to Ra, and that
she was the first to give birth to anything, and that she had done
so when nothing else had been born, and that she had never her-
self been born. For some reason or other Utchat-Heru found
favour in the sight of Cambyses, and the text tells us that the
king made offerings " even as every other good king had done."
The funds provided by Cambyses were spent by Utchat-Heru in
reviving the schools which had fallen into decay, and in refounding
colleges for the priests of Sai's. The fame and traditions of the
antiquity of Net and her worship were current among the late
Greek writers, and it will be remembered that Plutarch {De hide
et Osir., ix.) refers to an inscription on a statue of Pallas which he
renders, " I am everything which hath been, and which is, and
" which shall be, and there hath never been any who hath un-
" covered (or revealed) my veil." - Elsewhere (Chapter Ixii.) he
^ See Revillout in Revue jSgyptologiqne, torn, i., p. 72 ff.
Eyw ei'/xt TTtti^ TO ycyovo?, Kal ov, Kal iaofxevov, Kol toi/ ifJLOv Tri-rrXov ouSet's ttoj
aTrf.Ka\v\p(.v.
NET OR NEITH
459
says that the Egyptians often called Isis by the name Athene,
which signifies, " I have come from myself." ^
Up to the present no hieroglyphic inscription has been found
which can be regarded exactly as the original of the Greek words,
but there is no doubt that Plutarch only turned into words the
opinions about the goddess Net which were current when he wrote
his famous treatise on Isis and Osiris. In a |)assage of Proclus,
who gives a Greek rendering of an Egyptian text in terms closely
resembling those of Plutarch, after the words Tov iy^ov ^trwi^a ovSets
arreKoXyxpev, the goddess Net is made to say, ov eyw Kapirov ereKou,
17X105 iyevETo, which beyond all doubt reflects with considerable
exactitude the meaning of the Egyptian title of " Net, the mighty
mother,"who gave birth to Ra." ^ The words put into the mouth of
the goddess, " I am what has been, what is, and what shall be,"
are, as M. Mallet has remarked,^ only a development of a play
A^AAAA /VV\AA^
upon her name Net and the word ent , or entet , i.e., a
person or thing which is, or which exists, or which has being.
In other words, the Egyptians regarded Net as the " Being " j;a7^
excellence, i.e., the Being who was eternal and infinite, and was
the creative and ruling power of heaven, earth, and the under-
world, and of every creature and thing in them. Plutarch, how-
ever, was not without authority when he made Net say, koL tov
i/xov Tre-rrXov ovSet? ttco a7TeKaXv\\fev, for in an Egyptian text published
by Pierret^ under the title of "lady of the sycamore house,"
the goddess Net is addressed in the following
m
iznn'
words
a
milt
X
KiP
Hail, mother
tir an sefekh mesu-s
great, not hath been uncovered thy birth
^ r]X6ov (xtt' ijxavT^<;.
4:
Net urt mut mes Rd,
3 Op. cit., p. 191.
* Etudes lEgyptologiques, etc., Paris, 1873, p. 45 ff.
460
NET OR NEITH
1
o
d netert dat
Hail, goddess great,
v7 A^A^/>
em Iclien en
within
-k
ISIIl ^
=?= X
@
Tuaut
shetat sejp sen
the underworld which is doubly
hidden.
n ^i i^f
w
X
diet reJih-s
thou unknown one !
a
Hail,
/I
netrdi
thou divine one
url
great.
not
sefehh-tu qerds-s
hath been unloosed thy garment
0
sefehh
unloose
senhu-s
thy garment.
(^
^ J^
a- i?a^i dn ertd-tu uat-d en dq
Hail, Hapt (Hidden one), not is given my way of entrance
J\
D
jol e^^ip
er-es mddt shept ha en Asdr Jchui-s
to her, come, receive thou the soul of Osiris, protect it
em Ichen en ddid
within [thy] two hands.
These lines form a prayer Avhich is put into the mouth of
Ankh-f-en-Khensu, and, in the form in which we have it here, is
not older than the Saite period, i.e., about B.C. 550 ; but the
petition refers very distinctly to the mysterious character of the
births of Net, and to her attribute of inscrutability in the doubly
hidden underworld, and whilst the deceased declares that none has
ever penetrated the cloak wherewith she is shrouded, he beseeches
her to unloose it for him. Two words are used to express " cloak,"
NET OR NEITH 461
i.e., qerds and senhu, ^_^ (jig and Jl^ I "^ ?^' ^ ^^^* whicli calls
to mind the two words TreVXo? and -x^ltcov which are used by
Plutarch and Proclus respectively to express the same word. It
is, however, quite certain that the ideas and beliefs expressed in
the above prayer are far older than the time of the Psammetici,
and in one form or other they may be actually traced back to the
period of the Early Empire.
Another proof of the mysterious and remarkable powers
which were attributed to Net by Greek writers is given by
HorapoUo, who in his " Hieroglyphica " (i. 12) says that when the
Egyptians wish to depict a figure of Hephaistos they draw a scarab
and a vulture, and when they want to represent Athene (i.e., Net)
they draw a vulture and a scarab, for they believe that the world
is composed of two elements, the one male and the other female,
these two being the only gods whom they believe to be both male
and female.^ We have already seen that the god Khepera was
supposed to possess the jDowers of begetting and conceiving, and
giving birth, and, in fact, to be at once both male and female,
" and other forms of the Sun-god were said to be self-begotten,
self-produced, and self-born ; " these characteristics are, however,
not applied to any goddess except Net. Since the Egyptians
declared that she was eternal, and was self-produced, it followed as a
matter of course that both a masculine and a feminine nature must be
attributed to her. We have already described how Khepera pro-
duced his son Shu and his daughter Tefnut, the information on these
points being derived from ancient Egyptian writings, but details of
the birth of Ra by Net have not come down to us, and as far as
can be seen the Egyptian conception of the manner in which this
goddess exerted her reproductive powers is of a far loftier character
than that which appertained to the creation of Shu and Tefnut by
Khepera. It is customary to say that the Egyptians possessed
no philosophical conceptions until the arrival of the Greeks in
their country, but this view is a mistaken one, for there is much
evidence extant which proves that already under the Early Empire
Egyptian philosophers were constantly engaged in thinking out the
^ ovTOL yap fiovoL 6ewv Trap' atirots, dptrevo^TjAeis VTr6.p-)^ov(Ti (ed. Leemans, p. 19).
462 NET OR NEITH
problems which are connected with cosmogony and theogony.
The reason why they did not advance as a nation further in
such matters is that they allowed themselves to be hampered by
traditional opinions and beliefs, and by the rituals and ceremonies
which the people in general demanded should be integral portions
of the public worship of the gods. The statements of Greek
writers, taken together with the evidence derived from the hiero-
glyphic texts, prove that in very early times Net was the personi-
fication of the eternal female principle of life which was self-
sustaining and self-existent, and was secret, and unknown, and
all-pervading ; the more material thinkers, whilst admitting that
she brought forth her son Ra without the aid of a husband, were
unable to divorce from their minds the idea that a male germ was
necessary for his production, and finding it impossible to derive it
from a power or being external to the goddess, assumed that she
herself provided not only the substance which was to form the
body of Ra but also the male germ which fecundated it. Thus Net
was the prototype of partheno-genesis.
When, however, as Horapollo says, the Egyptians represented
Net by a vulture they referred to her in her character of the
universal mother, and as such many allusions are made to her in
the texts. Certain passages, it is true, speak of her having set her
arrow to her bow,^ and of her enemies falling daily under her
darts, but usually she is said to provide clothing for the dead, just
as the house-mother arrays her dead in linen. Thus in the form of
Mehenit, ^^ I] U ^ Pn ' ^^^^ brought linen apparel and coverings of
white, green, red, and purple linen to deck the face of the
deceased, and an ancient legend declared that she arrayed Osiris
in the apparel which had been specially woven for him by the two
Rekhti goddesses, '^,^, i.e., Isis and Nephthys. And because of
the part which she had taken in arraying Osiris in his grave-
clothes Net was made to preside over the "good house,"
I ? i-e., the chamber in which the dead were embalmed
and swathed in linen, and over the chambers of the temples in
which the unguents which were employed in public worship were
' See Brugscli, Beligion, p. 340.
NET OR NEITH 463
compounded. The unguents which she mixed for Osiris proved to
be the means by which the body of the god was preserved from
destruction and made young again, and happy were the dead who
were able to secure the ministrations of Net. We must note in
connexion with these facts that many of the attributes of Net as a
goddess of the dead were assigned to her because of her association
with Osiris, and it is clear from the texts of the late dynastic
period that Net was regarded in the light of a mother of Osiris,
and Sai's was actually called the city of Osiris. At certain seasons
of the year, festivals were celebrated there in commemoration of
the embalming, and bandaging, and burial of this god, and the
great feast of lamps, which is also referred to by Herodotus, was
one of the most important. Another very important festival was
that kept in the spring, on the birthday of Osiris, the son of Isis-
Net, which the late Dr. Brugsch identified with the birthday of the
spring sun.^
In Upper Egypt Net was chiefly worshipped at Seni (Esneh),
the Latopolis of the Greeks, which is called in the texts, "the
house of Net in the land of the south." Here she was identified
with Nebuut, jv, Menhit, Sekhet, and Tefnut, and was
represented with the head of a lioness painted green ; and her
titles were, '' Father of fathers, and Mother of mothers," and
" Net-Menhit, the great lady, lady of the south, the great cow
" who gave birth to the sun, who made the germ of gods and
" men, the mother of Ra, who raised up Tem in primeval time,
" who existed when nothing else had being, and who created that
" which exists after she had come into being." The people of
Seni (Latopolis) assigned to her as husband the ram-headed god
Khnemu, Pj ^^^ (^ 5| , the lord of the First Cataract, and she be-
came therefore "lady of Abu" (Elephantine), and the mother of
Tutu, a form of the god Shu, whose symbol was a lion walking.
Tutu, ^ ^ Jj ,Ms also known by the names Hee-ka, "^U 'Sl,^ and
1 Religion unci Mythologie, p. 347.
r
(3 d
3 Variants, ^^^^5^, or ^ ^ 5^.
3 Or, "^ LI D ^ Her-Jca-p-khart.
464 NET OR NEITH
Hetch-nefer-sebeq, d 1 P J /^ ? ^^^ ^^- ^^ depicted in the form
of a young man ^ wearing on his head the crown of the North, and
the Atef crown with uraei and disks ; the forefinger of his right
hand is raised to his mouth, which suggests that he had something
in common with the Harpocrates gods. According to Dr. Brugsch
he is the personification of the sun when he enters the zodiacal
sio:n of Leo, and the same scholar would connect the lion-headed
rain- spouts of the temples of Dendera, Khensu at Thebes, Edfu,
and Philae, with the summer sun.^ In the texts which describe
these spouts they are called " Lion," the " Strong one of strength,"
" mighty of strength," " possessor of two-fold strength," " the
mighty one of roarings," "fiery-face," and "lion of the face which
enchanteth (or terrifieth)." A form of Tutu, the son of Net and
Khnemu, called Ar-hes-nefer, (j *S* ^^ J ^ , often appears in
inscriptions wherein he is described as a " god of the south," and
he must be identified with the crocodile-headed god who appears
in the temple at Esneh under the names Sebek-Ra. and Hes-
nefer-Sebek, the son of Net.
From certain passages in the texts quoted by Dr. Brugsch ^ it
is clear that Amen-Rri, the " king of the gods," was the son of Net,
and in the hymn which Darius IL caused to be inscribed on the
walls of the temple of Hebt, in the Great Oasis, it is said that the
ra
Cow, ^^ '"^ ^r^i' ^•^•' -^®*' rejoiceth in the "Bull of his mother."
Here the Sun-srod is described as the husband who maketh fertile
with his seed,* and he is said to come to the town of Sapi,
J^ ^ ^^ , i.e., Sais. The hymn continues,^ " Thine image reposeth
" in Het-khebit, in the nest of the lady of Sai's. Thy mother Net
"uniteth herself unto thee (11^ ^) i^ ^l^® f^i'i^^ ^^ ^"j ^^d with
" thy body arrayed in the veil [which she hath Avoven] thy body
" dwelleth in the temples Resenet and Mehenet. Thy raiment is
1 Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 407, No. 3.
2 Religion, p. 349. "" Ihul, p. 353.
5 See Brug-sch, Beise nacli der grossen Oaae, pi. xxvi., 1. 28 f.
NET OR NEITH 465
" upon the hands of the two crocodile gods," 1^1' ^=^ "^
I I I I I
The crocodile gods here mentioned are, of course, the two crocodiles
which are seen one on each side of the goddess in certain pictures
of her. Finally, we find that in Thebes Net, as the mother and
wife of Amen-Ra, was known under the form and name of the
ancient goddess Ament. She is represented as a young woman
who wears upon her head the crown of the North, and holds in
each hand the emblem of water, '^^v^^^; as such she is called "Ament,
the dweller in Apt, Nini," (| =s ^ ^ ^ n 63 — — . Under the
name of Ament-Ra, (j a^ ^ ^ gj^g jg ^qq^ suckling Horus, and she
also appears as a ram-headed goddess wearing the Atef crown.^
All the attributes of Net were ascribed to Ament, who was origin-
ally the female counterpart of the local god Amen, and of necessity
a deity of little importance. Thus Ament is styled, " the Cow, the
" great lady, who fashioned the company of the gods, the mother
" of Ra, who gave birth to Horus." It is very difficult to
harmonize all the various statements which are made in the texts
concerning the attributes of Net, and the above paragraphs on this
goddess will illustrate the difficulty. They prove, however, that
the opinions which the Egyptians held concerning her varied from
time to time, and that contradictions in their statements are due
not so much to inconsistency or ignorance on the part of the priests
and copyists, as to the attempt made to harmonize every new
religious system of belief with every one which had existed
before it.
^ See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 25.
H h
( 466 )
CHAPTER XV
THE HORUS GODS
IT has already been stated that the hawk was probably the first
living creature which was worshipped generally throughout
Egypt, and that as the spirit of the heights of heaven, and as the
personification of the god who made the sky he was called Heru,
X '^ ^^, i.e., "he who is above," or, "that which is above."
It appears, however, that at a very early period this conception of
Heru was partly lost sight of, and whether as a result of the
different views held by certain early schools of thought, or whether
due to the similarity in sound between the name " Heru" and the
word for " face," Her or Hra, the idea which became associated
with the god Heru was that he represented the Face of heaven,
i.e., the Face of the head of an otherwise unknown and invisible
god. We can see that this view was an ancient one even in the time
when the Pyramids were built, for several allusions are made in
the funeral texts of the Vth and Vlth Dynasties to the " hair " or
"tresses," ft vl ^:z::^(l(l CCl. , of the Face of Heru as the Face of
heaven, and four gods who are called the " children of Horus,"
jtj n (1 ci ^^ , are declared to have their abodes in these tresses.^
The Face of heaven was supported by the four gods by means of
the four sceptres which they held in their hands, and these four
sceptres took the place of the four pillars, 1 1 1 K of the god Shu
which, according to an older myth, supported the four corners, i.e.,
the four cardinal points of the great iron plate that formed the floor
1 Pepi I., 11. 593, 600 ; and see Maspero, La Mylhologic J^gyptienne, p. 227.
3 The " Children of Horus" will be described later.
HORUS THE ELDER 467
of heaven and the sky above the earth. That the heavens, or the
skies, were considered to be a Face is evident from many allusions.
Thus the Sun is frequently called " Eye of Horus," and the Moon
is also an " Eye of Horus," the Sun being the right eye, and the
Moon the left ; a well known title of the Face is " Horus of the
Two Eyes," '^^ Jj, and when neither Eye is visible it is called
"Horus dwelling without Eyes, ^v o/| fffl) ^^"^ <j(-
The forms of Horus mentioned in Egyptian texts are numerous,
but the following are the most important : —
1. Heru-ue, ^k^^wl? i-®-? Horus the elder" (or the
" aged "), the 'ApayrjpL^ of the Greeks, so called to distinguish him
from Heru-pa-khart, or, " Horus the younger." He is depicted in
the form of a man with the head of a hawk, and also as a lion with
the head of a hawk ; he usually wears the crowns of the South and
l^orth united, but he is once seen with the horns of Khnemu
upon his head, and above them are a crown with plumes, uraei,
disks, etc.^ According to the Egyptian texts Heru-ur was the
son of Ra and Hathor ; the Hathor here referred to is the form of
the goddess which was specially worshipped at Qesqeset, '^ ^ ^ ,
i.e., Apollinopolis Parva ; but Plutarch declared him to be the
son of Kronos and Rhea, i.e., Seb and Nut, and therefore the
brother of Osiris. This statement was probably correct enough in
late dynastic times, when men had wholly identified Horus, the
son of Isis, with Horus the Elder. Originally Heru-ur represented
a phase or aspect of Horus, the Face of heaven, and it was he who
was the twin god of Set ; Heru-ur was the Face by day and Set
the Face by night. There was also a Heru-ur of the South, as we
learn from the picture of the god given by Lanzone,^ the seat of
whose worship was at Makhenut, -^V ^ ^^ , near El-Kab in Upper
Egypt, and a Heru-ur of the North, the seat of whose worship was at
Sekhemet, ^ Ix "^°'"©, or -='°^^, or Seshemet, i=3^ ^, the
Latopolis of the Greeks, and the OYtxjG jui of the Copts, which lay a
1 See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 226. ^ Ihid., No. 3.
468 HORUS THE ELDER
few miles to the north of Memphis ; other shrines of Heru-ur were
at Ombos, A) ^ , at Smennut, 1 ^ ^ 5 ^^^ ^t Apollinopolis.
AA/\AAA (2
The most important shrine of the god was at Sekhem, where stood
the sanctuary Pa- Ait, s 90 4 4 ^ ' ^^ ^^^ shrine was preserved
the shoulder, mdhhaq, ^^ ^ , of the god Osiris, and close by
JC\ A AAAAAA A
I (I , and Shent, 5 ffi 5 trees.
Heru-ur of Sekhem is called " lord of the Utchati, ^^," i.e., lord
of the Sun and Moon. In the Booh of the Dead (xviii.c) it is said
that the sovereign princes in Sekhem are Heru-khent-an-maati
and Thoth, but it is clear that locally the great gods of the city
were Isis, Osiris, and Horus. The form in which Heru-ur was
worshipped at Sekhem and other places was a lion. The inscrip-
tions on the Avails of the temple at Ombos ^ prove that he was called
the " lord of the south," the " lord of Nubti (Ombos)," and that
he was identified with Shu, son of Ra ; with " Heru-tema, the
" great god and lord of heaven, of two-fold strength, mighty one
" among all the gods, whose power hath vanquished the foes of his
" father Ra " ; with Amen-ur, or Amen the Elder ; and in fact with
several gods who were regarded as gods of light and of aspects of
the rising Sun, and also with the various gods who were connected
with them. At Ombos Heru-ur was the head of a triad which
consisted of himself, and his female counterpart, Ta-sent-nefert,
^ ^^ 1 ^ J c^ v) ' ^^^ their son P-neb-taui, D ^^3:7 "" ^,3 Avho is
sometimes called "the child," Q ^. The third member of this
triad wears a disk upon his head, and has a lock of hair at the side
of his face like Harpocrates, and he is called the " young sun,"
and the general titles which are given to Heru-ur and Ta-sent-
nefert indicate that in later days they were considered to be
identical with Shu and Tefnut.
2. Heru-p-kiiart, ^'t ° i"^^ #), i.e., "Horus the Youno-er"
(or, the " Child "), the 'Ap7T0KpdTr]<; of the Greeks, so called to
1 Brugsch, Eeligion, p. 539. 2 gge de Morgan, Kom Ombos, pp. 156, 181 ff.
HORUS THE YOUNGER 469
distinguish him from Heru-ur, or Horus the Elder. In Egyptian
pictures he is represented in the form of a youth wearing a lock
of hair, the symbol of youth, on the right side of his head ; some-
times he wears the triple crown with feathers and disks, and the
like, and sometimes a disk with plumes, i\rJS^ but usually his
cro^vn is formed by the united crowns of the South and North,
xf . In one scene he is seated inside a box which rests on the
back of a lion.^ Heru-p-khart was the son of a Horus god by the
goddess Rat-tauit, ^ "" i^ Jj , who is said to have brought him
forth in the temple of Het-ennut, J "^ ^ x^^? ^^ Hermonthis,
in a birth chamber, |T| 1 , in the precincts of the building
Qemqem, © ; the goddess seems to have been wor-
shipped here under the form of a hippopotamus, <=
Heru-p-khart, or Harpocrates, was a form of the rising sun and
represented his earliest rays; the Egyptians distinguished seven
forms or aspects of the god, which may be thus enumerated : —
1. Heru-Ra-p-khart, ^v ^ fi^ t^e dweller in Hermonthis. 2.
Heru-Shu-p-khart the great, ^^ p (^ | D ^ ; his father was
Saaba, [1 vT" r^, and his mother Anit, | flu T rlj' 3- Sma-taui-p-
khart [son] of Hathor, J^^j^^VH* ^' ?eru-p-khart,
the dweller in Busiris, fln^^- 5. Ahi, ^n, son of Hathor.
11 lA '=^ & Jl
6. Haq-p-khart, v=^ ^ ° i^' *^^® ^^^ ^^ Sekhet. 7. Heru-Hennu,
^' ? "^ S ^^ i-e., "Horus the Child." ^
^ w
o o
3. HeRU-MERTI, ^ o r^ ^ • ^"^ *^^^ ^°^'"^ *^® &^^ ^^
represented as a man with a hawk's head, above which are the
horns of the god Khnemu and the solar disk encircled by a uraeus ;
in' his hand he bears the Utchati, ^^. A passage in a
^ Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 328. - See Brugsch, Diet. Geog., p. 348.
470 HARMACHIS
papyrus quoted by Lanzone ^ calls him " Horus of the Two Eyes,"
Amseti-Aali (^^ 3 Q M) -, in the city of Apu," i.e., Panopolis,
and this seems to show that Heru-merti was a local form of the
god Amsu, or Khem, or Min, as the Moon.
4. Heru-an-mut-f, ^^ I ^ ^, was a local form of Horus
which was worshipped at Ateb, IjjL©? i-e., EdfCi, but the exact
characteristics of the god here are unknown.
5. Heru-nub. ^^ f^ii^. This was the form of the god which
was worshipped at Hierakonpolis, Per-Heru-nubt, J^ ^ , and
he was depicted as a hawk seated on the head of an antelope,
which, according to Brugsch,^ commemorates his triumphant
victory over Set, the murderer of Osiris.
6. Heru-khenti-Khat, ^ rJTV, ^ . In this form the god is
represented with a human body and the head of a crocodile, on
which he wears the horns of Khnemu, and the triple crown and
plumes ; ^ this form of Horus does not appear to be ancient.
7. Heru-khenti-an-maati, ^ fflhoo^' ■^■^■' "-^^^^^ ^*
the head of sightlessness," or the " Blind Horus ; " he appears to
represent the god when neither of his eyes was visible.
8. Heru-khuti, ^°, ^'^^^, >5 ^ ^, ^Ct" i-e..
" Horus of the two horizons," or the Harmachis of the Greeks.
He was one of the chief forms of the Sun-god Ra, and, speaking
generally, represented the sun in his daily course across the skies
from the time he left the Mount of Sunrise (Bakhau) to the time
when he entered the Mount of Sunset (Manu). Thus he combined
in his own person the god Ra and several of his forms, and in the
Boole of the Dead and other funeral works he|is joined to Temu,
1 Op. cit. p. 617. 2 Religion, p. 664.
s See Lanzone, p. 622, pi. 17 ; Brugscli, Religion, p. 606.
* For the passages see my VocaJmlary to the Chq^tert^ of Coming Forth by Datjy
p. 225.
HARMACHIS
471
Temu here indicates the god of the setting sun, and Khepera the
god of the sun when he is about to rise. When Heru-khuti was
identified with the various forms of the Sun-god he was also
supposed to possess their particular attributes, and thus it happens
that he is said to have produced himself, and it is this fact which
supplies the reason why hymns addressed to him are found. In
the texts he is called the " lord of heaven," " the great god, lord of
Sept-Hat," TFPff "^7 a city or district near the First Cataract,
the governor of the Aat of Ra,"
u^^
Cv
^ (Heliopolis),
Thothmes IV. making offerings to the Sphinx.
" Heru-khuti-Tem, the lord of the two lands of Annu," and the
" dweller in Behutet." The chief shrines of the god were, how-
ever, situated at Annu and at Apollinopolis, and the greater of
these was Annu, or Heliopolis, where he was identified with the
forms of Ra which were worshipped there. The largest known
monument or figure of Heru-khuti is the famous Sphinx, near the
Pyramids of Gizeh, which was his type and symbol. This
marvellous object was in existence in the days of Kha-f-Ra,
or Khephren, the builder of the Second Pyramid at Gizeh, and it
is probable that it is a very great deal older than his reign, and
472 HERU-SIMA-TAUI
that it dates from the end of the archaic period. No mention,
however, is made of the Sphinx in the inscriptions until the time
of Thothmes IV., when we are told in the text inscribed on the
stele between the paws of the Sphinx, that the image had become
entirely covered over with sand. To this king the god of the
Sphinx, Heru-khuti-Ra-Temu-Khepera, appeared one day when
he was sleeping his midday sleep, and promised to give him the
crown of Egypt if he would clear away the sand from his image,
and restore his temple. Thothmes IV. carried out the wishes of
the god, and having excavated the Sphinx, and rebuilt the temple
between his paws, Thothmes set up an inscribed stele to com-
memorate his work. Judging by the silence of the ancient
monuments about the Sphinx this figure of Heru-khuti cannot
have been popular in dynastic times, and if this was so it is
possible that it Avas due to the fact that the Sphinx was thought to
be connected in some way with foreigners or with a foreign religion
which dated from predynastic times. A recent but fanciful theory
makes the Sphinx to be the Avork of Amenemhat, a king of the
Xllth Dynasty; its name in Egyptian was Hu, fi vi..^^. The
forms in which Heru-khuti is represented are many, but whether
in human form or not, he usually has the head of a hawk ; in the
examples collected by Signor Lanzone ^ we see him wearing on his
head the solar disk encircled with a uraeus or the triple crown,
i§Mi^ or the atef crown. In one scene he is depicted as a double
man with a head having the faces of two hawks, one looking to the
risfht, and the other to the left, and above this two-faced head is an
utchat, ^§,; in another scene he has the head of a ram, which
identifies him with Khnemu, the god of the First Cataract, and in
another he is seated on a throne Avhich is carried on poles by two
snake- and two beetle-headed gods.
9. Heru-sma-taui, ^^ "T ^ "" \ i.e., " Horus, the uniter of the
South and North." He is said to be the son of Hathor ; his chief
places of worship Avere Aat-hehu, i^-^^ J | V ®' ^ district near
Herakleopolis Magna, and Ant, [n , i.e., Denderah, and the city
' Op. cit., pll. 229 ff.
HORUS OF BEHUTET 473
of Khatat, T A ^ , a-nd the creatures in which he was thought to
be incarnate were the hawk and a species of serpent. He is
usually depicted with the body of a man with the head of a hawk,
or serpent, or man, and he wears as head-dresses, ^a, ^, and ^Mj-;
in one scene he is represented as a hawk/ and he wears upon his
head a disk and plumes, yK . In this form Horus was believed to
spring into existence out of a lotus flower which blossomed in the
heavenly abyss of Nu at dawn at the beginning of the year.
10. Heru-hekennu, ^k? pr^v?[- He is said to have been
the son of the goddess Bast, and the seats of his worship were the
towns of Netert, T ^__^ ( ^ , and Het-Nefer-Tem ; he is usually
depicted in the form of a hawk-headed man, with the solar disk
encircled by a serpent on his head. The exact attributes of the
god are unknown.
11. Heru-Behutet, ^^ JI^^"^^©- This is one of the
greatest and most important of all the forms of Horus, for he
represents that form of Heru-khuti which prevailed in the
southern heavens at midday, and as such typified the greatest
power of the heat of the sun. It was under this form that Horus
waged war against Set or Typhon, and the inscriptions are full of
allusions to the glorious victory which the god of light gained over
the prince of darkness and his fiends.
The principal shrines of the god were at Mesen, H V , ^^^^
Qem-baius, ^^g '^^ ^ , Aat-ab, i-^^ f\ ^a/^n ^ (Philae), and
/ AA \ Ks^ f ^ /www v£?
Tebt, A jL^ (Tanis) ; in the last named place he was worshipped
under the form of a lion, which Avears the triple croAvn upon its
head, and is depicted in the act of trampling upon its enemies.
The god is, however, usually depicted with the head of a hawk,
and carrying in his hands some weapon which indicates his
character as a destroyer. Thus, in one illustration given by
Signor Lanzone,^ we see him holding a weajDon like a club or mace
' See Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 239. 2 Qp. cit., pll. 242 ff.
474
HORUS OF BEHUTET
in his right hand, and a bow and three arrows in his left^; in
another he is about to club an ass-headed man in fetters with the
club, -G — ^ ; in another we see him standing on an oryx or
antelope, and holding a long hawk-headed spear in his right hand,
and three cords, to each of which is attached a prisoner, ^.
Elsewhere we see him depicted with the head of a lion, which
seems to have been the form in which he was worshipped at
Tchar, ^^ <=> ^ , or Tanis, in the Delta, and in one place he is
seated on a throne which rests on the back of a lion. As the god
Horus of Behutet armed with a bow and arrows and a club.
of generation and reproduction he appears as a hawk with a
phallus terminating in the head of a lion, and in a scene of the late
period he is represented with the body of a man, and the head and
wings of a hawk, kneeling upon two crocodiles ; on his head he
wears ^ , and in his left hand he holds a scorpion, § .
1 He is here called
cesh=i
2 He is here called " smiter of the rebel," fX]
,-r— S>
J
HORUS OF BEHUTET
475
In an extract from a text inscribed on a wall of the temple of
Edfu given by Dr. Brugsch/ Heru-beliutet is described as the
power which dispels darkness and night, and drives away clouds,
rain, and storms, and fills all heaven and the world with his
brilliance and light ; he rises with golden disk as the holy beetle of
gold, and he is declared to be the lord and creator of the gods.
He created himself, there is none like unto him, he rencAvs his
birth daily, and year by year he performs his appointed course in
the heavens, bringing in his train the seasons, and their proper
produce. In one of his aspects he is identified
with Osiris, and then the goddesses Isis and
Nephthys are said to help him to emerge
from the abyss of JSTu ; he made the heavens
to be the dwelling-place for his soul, and he
created the deep that it might serve as a
place wherein to hide his body, which is here
called Un-nefer, -^^ T J) . But the forms
in which Heru-behutet appealed most strongly
to the mind of the Egyptians were those in
which as the god of light he fought against
Set, the god of darkness, and as the god of
good against the god of evil. We know
from a passage in the xviith Chapter of
the Book of the Dead (line 66) that in
very early times a combat took place
between Horus and Set, wherein the
former destroyed the virility of Set,
and the latter cast filth in the face of Horus, and it is this form of
the traditional fio-ht between the two " Combatants," or Rehui,
O J.I
^"^ I %^ J) Jj , which is the base of the narrative inscribed on the
walls of the great Temple of Edfu. There was, however, one very
great difference between the fight of Horus and Set of predynastic
times and that described between the Horus and Set known at
Edfu ; in the former fight the two combatants were unarmed, but
in the latter Horus was armed with weapons of iron, and he was
The double srod Horus-Set.
^ Religion, p. 548.
476 HORUS OF BEHUTET
accompanied by a number of beings who are called mes7iiu,
m \\ ^ ' ' ^^' mesnitu, nj I ^ m ' '^ It is pretty certain from
E^crreT, the Coptic equivalent of the word mesneti, that the
mesniu were workers in metal, and that this name was first applied
to them as blacksmiths, and that at a later period the mesniu
were men armed with weapons made of metal. The place where
metal work was done, i.e., Avhere the ore was smelted and the
weapons were forged, was called mesnet, , the " foundry," and
the worshippers of Horus of Behutet never tired of describing
their god as the "lord of the forge-city," i.e., Edfu, the place
where tradition declared he first established himself as the great
master blacksmith. And Edfu itself was regarded as the foundry
Avherein the great disk of the sun was forged, as we see from a
passage quoted by Dr. Brugsch, in which it is said " when the
" doors of the foundry are opened the Disk riseth up," \/ ~
•^ -■• ■•■ ' □ X ^ iiiiiiiii
In support of this tradition we find that a certain chamber in
the temple of Edfu, which lay just behind the sanctuary, was called
mesnet, fn 1 and it was here that the " blacksmiths " waited
in attendance to usher forth the image of the god in his temple.
From the representations of the " blacksmiths " given on the walls
of the temple of Edfu ^ we see that they were originally men with
shaven heads who wore a short tunic and a deep collar, and that in
their right hands they carried a spear inverted, I , and in their left
a metal instrument, b. In the same scene in which these occur
Horus of Behutet is represented standing in a boat, dressed like
his followers, and driving a long spear into the head of a hippo-
potamus beneath the boat with his right hand, and holding the
monster in restraint by a double chain Avhich he grasps in his left
hand. In the bows of the boat kneels Isis, who also holds the
hippopotamus by a chain in each hand, and we may note that
^x'S^^Sf' ^0
1 Variants are mm. „
nil 0 ©
2 Worterhuch, p. 703.
3 See Naville, Mythe cVHorus, Geneva, 1870, pi. 7.
HORUS OF BEHUTET 477
the tackle of the boat consists of chains, presumably of iron, and
not of ropes. In another place ^ Horus stands on the back of the
hippopotamus, the legs of which are tied together by chains, and
the lower jaw of which is held fast by a chain. The story of the
defeat of Set by Heru-Behutet is told in the texts on the walls of
the temple of Edfu substantially as follows : — In the year 363,
(3(^^|^[^|^|||, of Ra-Heru-khuti, 5a T '^^ J, the king of the
South and North who liveth for ever and ever, his Majesty found
himself in the country of Ta-kens f V ■" , or Nubia), for he had
gone to the district of Uauat,^ because certain folk had conspired
against their lord. Having suppressed the rebellion he returned
to Edfu, and deputed his son Heru-behutet to continue the war
on his behalf; this god had observed how men had conspired
against his father, and he was ready to carry out his behests.
Thereupon Heru-behutet flew up to heaven in the form of a
winged disk, ^ss?, and ever after he was called "great god, lord of
heaven."
From the height of heaven he was able to see his father's
enemies, and he chased them in the form of a great winged disk ;
he attacked them with such wrath and vigour, that they lost their
senses and could see neither with their eyes nor hear with their
ears, o^ .= ^ [1 0 -^ ^ f f §>§> f P 0, and every man fell
upon his neighbour and slew him, and in a moment all were dead.
And straightway Horus, with many-coloured shapes and feathers,
^A '^^ n ^.vwvA tCl , returned to his form as a winged disk and
took up his position in the boat of Ra. At this juncture Thoth
declared that Horus, son of Ba, should be called Heru-Behutet,
and Behutet (Edfu) should be called the city of Horus ; and Ra
referred with pleasure to the blood which his son had shed and
which he likened to grapes. Then Horus suggested that Ra
should come and look upon his dead enemies, and Ra, escorted by
1 Naville, op. cit., pi. 9.
3 Note the pun on the name Uauat, X| -C) , and the verb " to murmur,
conspire," 4o ) -L ) ^h .
478 HORUS OF BEHUTET
Hathor, and followed by the goddess Asthertet, ^^ ^__^ ^
who is described as the "mistress of horses," | Q ^
and who in the form of a woman with the head of a lioness is seen
standing in a chariot, agrees to his son's proposal. The chariot of
the goddess is drawn by four horses, which trample upon the foes
of Ra, who lie upon the ground bound with fetters. When Ra
saw this he said to Horus, " This is a very pleasant life," | T" | ,
and therefore the temple of Horus was called " Pleasant Life,"
from that day. Then Thoth observed, " This was the spearing of
my foes," and therefore Edfu was called Teb, A®\\, from that
day ; and he further said to Horus, " Thou art a great protector,"
LJ Kzi:^ I , and straightway the boat of Horus was called " Great
Protector." After this Ra proposed that they should journey
upon the water, and his enemies also Avent to the water, and as
soon as they had entered it they turned into crocodiles, emsuhu
'^^^^^^ , and hippopotamuses, <^^ i , tejm, and when they were
near enough to him they opened their mouths intending to swallow
up the god. Then Horus came along with his "blacksmiths,"
n n AAA^ ^ '^ ' ? each having a spear made of divine iron, | i) ^-oi- ^
/\AAA/V\
and a chain, (^ , in his hand, and they slew the crocodiles, and
the hippopotamuses, and they brought in 651 ^ enemies, M (j J ^^^,
immediately. Ra-Heru-khuti next ordered that statues of himself
should be set up in the land of the south in the place called
AA/wv. r~|
Het-ii-nekht, ^;;^="^ "^ — a U , and Thoth applauded Horus because
he had made use of the formulae which were to be found in the
Book of the slaughter of the Hippopotamus, ^^^^ ^aaa^^ s^ — a ^ <^^ ;
from that day the blacksmiths of Heru-Behutet have existed at
Edfu.
(D (3 (3 n n n
^ Naville gives (pi. xiii., !• 8) ^ ^ ^ p> p, Ij ^^^ Brugscli (Ahhandlungen
Koniglichen Gesellscliaft der Wissenschaften zu Gotfingen, Bd. xiv., p. 216) and
Wiedemann both give 381, i.e., they read ^ ^ .
HORUS OF BEHUTET 479
And Horus once again took the form of a winged disk, and
placed himself in the bows of the boat of Ra, and he took with him
the two goddesses Nekhebet, ^ £ J ^ ^ and Uatchit, | ^ ^ , in
the form of two serpents, that they might destroy the crocodiles
and the hippopotamuses in their dens. As soon as the enemies of
Ra perceived that they were being followed they turned round and
fled to the south, but they were overtaken by Horus and his
blacksmiths, each with his spear and his chain in his hands, and a
mighty slaughter took place on a plain which was situated to the
south-east of Thebes, dL ¥ V 1 ^ ' ^^^^ which on account of the
terrible scenes of carnage that were enacted there was called
Tchetemet, ^^ , i.e., " slauojhter." This was the second
slaughter of the foes of Ra, and after this they retreated north-
wards, to the region of the Mediterranean Sea, and they were
utterly disheartened and in fear of Horus ; but this god followed
after them in the boat of Ra, and with him were his companions
who were provided with spears and chains, Horus himself was
provided with a battle spear, [Kx «^^ , ^^^1 a chain, ^ ^^, and
blacksmiths, ^=^f^ ^ i , and when he had waited a whole day he
saw his foes to the north-east of Dendera, ^^^p ^ fe^? and
having attacked them he made a third great slaughter, T '^^ (1 [1 ^^>^
JiJiai, among them : the name of the place where the enemy was
defeated was called "Divine Slaughter," | -^^^ 1 'fe^ f^ 4 """^^ ' ^^^
it was situated quite close to Dendera. Heru-Behutet was made
the god of the region, and the acacia, >< ^°^ A , and the sycamore,
\\m, were sacred to him.
Once more the enemy fled to the north and was pursued
closely by Horus, who was armed as before ; for four whole days
and nio-hts, ^ ' ^' ', he saw nothing; whatsoever of the enemy, for
they had changed themselves into crocodiles and hippopotamuses,
but when he did see them he attacked them with great vigour and
slew them in large numbers. One hundred and forty-two of them
he bound in chains and dragged on to the boat of Ra, and he
480 HORUS OF BEHUTET
captured also a "male hippopotamus," <Q f=iD; all the fiends he
slew, and he gave their entrails to his companions, and their bodies
to the gods and goddesses who were in the boat of Ra near the
town of Heben, § S J- As a proof of his victory he got up and
stood upon the back of the hippopotamus, and as a result he was
called "Her-pest," i.e., "He who is on the back." All these
things took place on the piece of ground which formed the temple
estate of the town of Heben, and which measured 342 hhet,
^^^ (0(3(3 ^ ^ 1 1 , on the South, North, West, and East. The enemy,
however was not wholly defeated, and some fled to the north
hoping to reach the " Great Green Sea," '^ ^ ; but the god
Horus followed after them and slew many of the rebels, the
remainder of whom went to the Sea of Mertet, aaaaaa ^ ^ ^rx/vy^?
and there joined themselves to the fiends of Set, '6-^. After
some difficulty Horus found out where the enemies were, and
having come up with them he captured 381 rebels, whom he
slew in the bows of the boat of Ea, and he sent one body to each
of his companions. When Set saw what had been done to his
friends he cried out and uttered awful imprecations and complaints
of the terrible destruction which Horus had wrought, and because
of his foul words, | (§. ^ ^'^^ ^ "^ — °' ^^.^^-^^^?^^> t^® ^^nd was
ever after called Nehalia, AA^/w^ #" <^ 4^ . Horus straightway
attacked Set, and hurled his lance at him, and threw him down
upon the ground in a place near the city which was always after-
wards called Per-Rerehu, """^ '^^ § ^ ; when he came back he
brought Set with him, and his spear was in his neck, v^^ <=>
J ^ , and the legs of the monster were chained, and his mouth
had been closed by a blow from the club of the god. After these
exploits Ra ordered that Horus should be called Urui-Tenten,
^^^ c=^> cr^ia V^ ^ and he further decreed that the enemies of
(§ \\ AAAAA^ AA/V^A^ LA
himself and Horus, Set and his confederates, should be handed
over to the goddess Isis and her son Horus for them to do
with them as they pleased. Thereupon Isis and Horus took up
HORUS OF BEHUTET 481
their position near Ra, and the young god drove his weapon,
^^^ mdbj into Set, at a place called " She-nu-aha," Q^, i.e.,
" Lake of Battle," or, '' She-neter," rrr-i | "^ , i.e., " Lake of
God;" he next cut off his head, and the heads of his followers,
in the presence of Ra and the great company of the gods, and then
dragged his body through the length and breadth of his land with
his spear thrust through his head and his back.
Then Ra ordered that Horus, the son of Isis, should drag the
body of the monster about, and because of this "dragging" the
place was called "Atha," fl ^ \|/ ^ ever after. At this juncture
the divine Isis asked her father Ra, that the winged sun-disk, .4^,
might be given to her son Horus as a talisman, because he had cut
off the heads of the fiend and his companions, and as a result Heru-
behutet and Horus, son of Isis, together pursued the foe Set, and
both gods were of the same form and appearance. They had the
bodies of men, and the heads of hawks, and they wore the White
and Red Crowns, with plumes, and uraei. All these events
took place on the seventh day of the month Tybi, w <=> ?; ,
and the place wherein they happened was called Aat-shatet,
After these things Set changed himself into a serpent which
hissed loudly, and he sought out a hole for himself in the ground
wherein he hid himself and lived, whereupon Ra said, " the monster
" Ba ( J ^5^) 1 hath turned himself into a hissing serpent, let
" Horus, the son of Isis, set himself above his hole in the form of a
"pole on the top of which is the head of Horus, (9), so that he
" may never again come forth therefrom." As the result of this
the serpent of that town was called " Hisser " or " Roarer,"
rO T i)m, ) Hemhemet, and Horus the son of Isis stood U23on
him in the form of a pole, or staff, on the top of which was the
head of a hawk. When all these things were done the boat of Ra
arrived at Per-aha, crm fV^, or " House of Battle " ; the fore part
f of the boat was made of acacia wood, and the after part of
sycamore wood, and both kinds of wood were, henceforth, holy.
I i
482 HORUS OF BEHUTET
Meanwhile, however, there still remained some of the enemies of
Ra in the land, and this god exhorted his son to set out and
to make an end of them, whereupon Horus told his father that if
he would allow the boat to go whither he pleased, he would treat
the enemy in such a way that it would be pleasing to Ra. When
the boat had sailed but a little way on the water of Meh, °^ ^^a^ ,
he found one of the friends of Set, and having hurled his spear at
him, he caught him, and slaughtered him in the presence of Ra, at
a place called Astabet, j] ¥ J Wj ^' ^ truce for six days and six
nights then followed, and Horus had rest, while Isis made use of
her words of power to keep away Ba, i.e., Set, from the district
called " An-rut-f." Soon afterwards Horus slew 106 of the enemy,
and then made a final attack upon them in the neighbourhood of
An-hat, f\ , , "HYP . ^ , and Tchar, ^^^ | ^ , or Tanis ; some
made their escape and succeeded in getting away to the moun-
tains, and others threw themselves into the sea. Horus changed
himself into the form of a lion, with the head of a man sur-
mounted by the triple crown, and grasping in his hand his keen-
edged knife he pursued them, and brought back 142 of the enemy,
whom he slew, and he tore out their tongues, and their blood
gushed out upon the ridges of the ground, ^^ T| I o
<=> /^ no "^ ^^ D
I I III I v III o*
When this Avas done Ra told Horus that he wished to travel
further upon the sea, and to smite the remainder of his foes who
still lived in the form of crocodiles and hippopotami near Egypt,
but Horus told him that it was impossible to sail further on the sea
because the one-third of the enemy which still remained were
therein.^ When Thoth heard this he recited certain chapters
containing magical formulae, with the view of protecting the Boat
and the vessels of the blacksmiths which were with it, and of quiet-
ing the sea during the period of storm. It is clear that when
these chapters had been recited, Ra and his company set out and
went over the whole sea, but as no more enemies were seen they
.„„llll - 0 Ml
D® i^ I I I I ^ I
qr
HORUS OF BEHUTET 483
returned to Egypt, travelling by night. Finally, Horus and his
companions went back to Nubia, to the town of Shashertet,
■^ ^ ^, where he destroyed the rebels of Uauat, and
m(]P
[\yvr)'
their ablest soldiers. When this was done Horus changed himself
once more into the form of the winged sun-disk with uraei, and
took with him the goddesses Nekhebet and Uatchit in the form of
two serpents, that they might consume with fire any rebels who
still remained. When the gods who were in his boat saw this
they said, " Great indeed is that which Horus hath done by means
" of his double snake diadem ; he hath smitten the enemy who
" were afraid of him ! " And Horus said, " Henceforward let the
'' double snake diadem of Heru-Behutet be called tlr-uatchti
"/^^Ij on V" ^Yid it was so. After these things Horus
journeyed on in his ship, or boat, and arrived at Apollinopolis
Magna (Edfii) flv^®? ^^^ Thoth decreed that he should be
called the " Light-giver, who cometh forth from the horizon
"(([() ^^^ cQ]); " hereupon Horus commanded Thoth that the
winged sun-disk with uraei, €Ds, should be brought into every
sanctuary wherein he dwelt and in every sanctuary of all the gods
of the lands of the South and of the North, and in Amentet, in
order that they might drive away evil from therein. Then Thoth
made figures of the winged sun-disk with uraei, and distributed
them among the temples, and sanctuaries, and places wherein
there were any gods, and this is what is meant by the winged
disks with uraei which are seen over the entrances of the courts of
the temples of all the gods and goddesses of Egypt. The snake
goddess on the right hand side of the disk is Nekhebet, and that
on the left is IJatchit.^
The above legend is very important for the study of Egyptian
mythology, notwithstanding the fact that in its form here described
it belongs to a very modern period. The fundamental facts of the
story are very old, for they belong to the earliest period of
^ For tlie text of the legend summarized above see Naville, Mytlie cTHorus,
pll. xii. f£. ; and for a translation, witli transliteration of text and commentary, see
Brugscli, Die Sage von der gefliUjelten Sonnenscheibe in the Abiumdiungen of the
Royal Society of Sciences in Gottingen (Phys. Classe, Bd. xiv., p. 173 ff.).
484 HORUS OF BEHUTET
Egyptian history, and are derived from the old nature myth
of the combat between Light and Darkness. With these, how-
ever, we have mingled another element, which is apparently
historical, and is also of very great antiquity. In the original
fight between Ra and Apep, or Horus and Set, the Sun-god was
accompanied by his followers, whose duties, apparently, consisted
in watching the combat, and who were, like Ra himself, un-
connected with the earth. But in the fight of Heru-Behutet with
Set, the companions of the gods were beings in the forms of men
who were armed with spears and chains for fettering purposes, and
they were rewarded by him after the manner of men. The god
himself was armed with a very long spear made of " iron of the
god " or " divine iron," and with a chain of unusual length, and
his method of fighting was to hurl his spear at his foes, and when
it had' struck home, he fettered them with his chain, and having
dragged them to his boat, slaughtered them at leisure. The
first great defeat of the enemy took place at Aat-Tchetemi,
i^-^-j ^°^ ( — (](]©, near Thebes ; the second took place at Neter-
Khaita, T ^ T "^ (1 (1 A © , near Dendera, and was followed by the
overthrow of small bodies of them in the neighbouring nomes
going towards the north ; and the last great conquest was effected
by the god, who took the form of a lion, at Tchar, ^^ .Ss. | f^^^ ,
or Tanis, in the east of the Delta, not far from the modern
Suez Canal.
All these facts indicate that we are not dealing entirely with
mythological events, and it is nearly certain that the triumphant
progress ascribed to Heru-Behutet is based upon the exploits of
some victorious invader who established himself at Edfu in very
early times, and then made his way with his followers northwards,
beating down all opposition as he went. It is pretty clear that
he owed his success chiefly to the superiority of the weapons
with which he and his men were armed, and to the material of
which they were made ; given equality of bravery in two bodies
of men opposed each to the other, troops armed with weapons of
flint would not long oppose successfully those armed with weapons
of iron. In other words, the followers of Horus, who are called
HORUS OF BEHUTET 485
mesniti in the text, as we have already shown, were actually
workers in metal, or, " blacksmiths," and men who knew how to
smelt iron ore and to forge the metal into weapons of offence
and defence. These men called their workshop or foundry mesnet
or mes7iit, and later, when their leader and themselves had become
deified, and priests had been appointed to perform the worship of
the god, the portion of the temple which was set apart for them
was also called mesnet or mesnit, and when the metal statue of
the god of the rising sun, Heru-Behutet, was brought out by
them fi'om their chamber the god was said to issue from the
foundry wherein he had been cast, and the mesnet was identified
with that portion of the sky from which the Sun-god appeared.
It is, of course, impossible to say who were the blacksmiths
that swept over Egypt from south to north, or where they came
from, but the writer believes that they represent the invaders in
predynastic times, who made their way into Egypt, from a country
in the East, by way of the Red Sea, and by some road across the
eastern desert, e.g., that through the Wadi Hammamat, or that
which touches the Nile a little to the south of Thebes. They
brought with them the knowledge of working in metals and of
brick-making, and having conquered the indigenous peoples in the
south, i.e., those round about Edfu, they made that city the centre
of their civilization, and then proceeded to conquer and occupy
other sites, and to establish sanctuaries for their god or gods.^ In
later times the indigenous priesthoods merged the legendary
history of the deified king of the blacksmiths in that of Horus, the
god of heaven in the earliest times, and in that of Ra, which
belonged to a later period. The priests of Edfu found many
parts of this mixed history very difficult to explain, and they
endeavoured to get out of their difficulties by the fabrication of
foolish etymologies and puns, whereby they sought to elucidate
events and names. These, however, have a certain importance,
for they at least prove that parts of the legends were not under-
stood when the puns or plays on words were made, and that the
1 The historical element in the legend was long ago recognized by Maspero ;
see Les Forgerons cVHorus et la Legende cle VEorus cVEdfou (in Bib. Egyj)t., torn, ii.,
pp. 313 ff.).
486 HORUS, SON OF ISIS
legends themselves are of great antiquity ; another point is also
made clear by them, i.e., that the Egyptians themselves were not
better informed on such subjects than we are.
12. Heru-thema, ^. j^ a, i.e., " Horus the piercer."
This form of Horus is that in which the god attacked Set, the
murderer of his father Osiris, with his long spear Avith a sharp-
pointed iron head ; he is represented in the form of a hawk-
headed man in the act of driving his long spear into sonie unseen
foe on or below the "'round.
13. Heru-Hebenu, V^ k 5- i.e., Horus of Hebenu, or
Hebennut, \\ ^ ^ ' ^^ metropolis of the sixteenth nome of
Upper Egypt.^ He is mentioned in the myth of Heru-Behutet,
with whom he is often identified, and he is usually depicted in the
form of a hawk-headed man standing upon the back of an antelope ;
this animal was supposed to be connected with Set, and Horus of
Hebennu mounted upon his back as a symbol of his sovereignty
over the god of darkness and all his host.
U. Heru-sa-Ast..a-Asar, ^' I ^J j^g, ^| J^-
i.e., " Horus, son of Isis, son of Osiris," like many other forms of
Horus, represented in general the rising sun, and appears to have
been to the Egyptians exactly what Apollo was to the Greeks in
this respect ; the aspects of this god were many, and in consequence
his shrines were very numerous both in the South and in the
North. In him were at one time or another included all the
various Horus gods, beginning with Heru, | "^ ^^, the god
of the heights of heaven, and Horus the Elder, and ending with the
least important Hoi'us, i.e., the god of some provincial town. His
principal aspects were, however, two, i.e., he represented the
new Sun which was born daily, and which was the successor of
Heru-khuti or of Ra, and he was also the offspring of the dead
man-god Osiris and his lawful successor. Horus, the son of Isis
and of Osiris, was a god whose attributes appealed strongly to the
Egyptians from one end of Egypt to the other, because in him
^ Brugscli, Did. Geog., p. 490 ; and Brugscli, Religion, pp. 558 ff.
HORUS, SON OF ISIS 487
every man and woman saw the type of what he or she Avished to
possess, that is to say, reoewed life, and life as opposed to death^
and movement as opposed to inactivity, and intercourse with the
living instead of with the dead. In a Avay Osiris and Horus were
complements, each of the other, but the chief difference was that
Osiris represented the past, and Horus the present, or, as we have
it expressed in the Booh of the Dead (xvii. 15), "Osiris is Yester-
" day, and Ra (i.e., Horus grown up) is to-day," (] <cr> |l ^ Jj
D ^ ij ^i^ i< "^ %. O ^^ '^ D % . The texts are not always
consistent in the matter of the paternity of Horus, for though Isis
is invariably regarded as his mother, his father is sometimes said
to be Osiris, and sometimes Ra ; but this inconsistency is easily
accounted for by remembering that Osiris is, under one aspect, a
form of the dead Sun-god. Of the circumstances under which
Horus was begotten we gain a good idea from a hymn to Osiris
in which the sorrow of his mother Isis at the death of her
husband is described. The goddess was greatly distressed, but
she was equipped with mighty words of power, and she knew how
to utter them so that they might have the greatest effect, and she
set out in search of the dead body of Osiris and never rested until
she had found him. With her hair she made light, and with her
wings she stirred the air as she made lamentation for her brother
Osiris, and at length she brought his body into a state of activity,
and was then united to him ; thus she became with child by him,
and her son Horus was born in a secret place where she suckled
him and reared him.^
This spot appears to have been situated among the papyrus
swamps in the Delta, and the event is alluded to in many scenes in
which the goddess is seen, suckling her child amidst a dense mass
of papyrus plants. Soon after the birth of her child she was
persecuted by Set, who kept herself and Horus prisoners, in a
house, but by the help of Thoth she escaped with her child one
evening, and set out on her way under the protection of seven
scorpions called Tefen, =cfL(^gg, Befen, jj'^^^^i^, Mestet,
^ See Chabas, Eeiue Archeologique, 1857, p. 65 ; Ledrain, Monuments
^gyptiens, pll. 22 ff.
488 HORUS, SON OF ISIS
12^, Mestetef, |^^^^e, Petet, J^^(M, Thetet, 7;
and Matet, -Z^ (M^- These scorpions probably represent the
seven stars of the constellation Canis Major, in which the stars of
Isis and Sothis were situated. The last three scorpions showed
Isis the way and led her to the to^vn of Per-Sui, 1 Y^ QCl ^^^/
or Crocodilopolis, and then on to the city of Thebti, the city of the
Two Sandals-Goddesses, ^ , W ^ w m r^ ? where the swamp country
begins. Whilst Isis was absent one day Horus was stung by a
scorpion, and when she came home she found him lying on the
ground, and the foam was on his lips, and his heart was still, and
there was not a muscle or limb of him which was not rigid ; she had
protected him against Set, and against the possibility of attack by
any being in the papyrus swamps, but a scorpion had stung the
child, and he was dead. Whilst Isis was lamenting his death her
sister Nephthys came with Serqet, the scorpion goddess, and
advised her to cry out to heaven for help, and she did so, and her
cry penetrated to Ra in his " Boat of Millions of Years." The
great god stopped his boat, and Thoth came down with words of
power, and by means of these her son was once more raised to life
and health. Soon after these things had taken place Horus set to
work to avenge the death of his father Osiris, and it was under his
form of " Horus, the avenger of his father," ^,^ rj] "T ^ "^
(] "^ J4 ^.=^ ,2 that he appealed so strongly to the imagination of
the Egyptians.
According to a notice in the Calendar given in the Fourth
Sallier Papyrus (Brit. Mus., No. 10,184), Horus began his fight
with Set, which lasted three days, on the 26th day of the month
of Thoth, and the two gods fought in the form of two men. Isis
was present at the fight and, because she in some way supported
Set against Horus, her son turned upon her with the fury of a
" panther of the south," and cut off her head. Thoth, however,
seeing what had been done, took the head of the goddess, and by
^ The story is told on the Metteniichsieic, ed. Golenischeff, Leipzig, 1877,
pi. iii., 11. 46 ff.
2 For references to him in the BooTc of the Dead see my Vocabulary, p. 225.
HORUS, SON OF ISIS 489
means of his words of power transformed it into the head of a cow,
and then fixed it upon the body of Isis.-^ According to Plutarch
{De Iside et Osiride), Isis found that her son Horus had succeeded
in fettering Set and in binding him in chains, but not wishing that
he should perish she loosed his fetters and set him at liberty ; then
it was that Horus tore off her head the symbols of sovereignty
which were upon it. We have no means of assigning a date to the
composition of the above legend, but it must be very old, and it is
easy to see that it is only a version of the older legend of the
combat between Ra and Apep, and Heru-ur and Set, and Heru-
Behutet and Set, and it is, of course, one of the sources of all the
post- Christian legends of the overthrow of dragons by kings and
heroes, e.g., Alexander the Great and Saint George. When Horus
had overcome Set he succeeded to the inheritance of his father, and
took his seat upon the throne of Osiris, and reigned in his stead ;
and, in the words addressed to Osiris by the official Hunefer, " Horus
' is triumphant in the presence of the whole company of the gods,
' the sovereignty over the world hath been given unto him, and his
' dominion is in the uttermost parts of the earth. The throne of
' the god Seb hath been adjudged unto him, along with the rank
' which hath been founded by the god Temu, and which hath been
' stablished by decrees in the Chamber of Books, and hath been
' inscribed upon an iron tablet according to the command of thy
' father Ptah-Tanen, on the great throne. . . . Gods celestial and
' gods terrestrial transfer themselves to the service of thy son
' Horus, and they follow him into his hall, [where] a decree is
' passed that he shall be lord over them, and they perform the
' decree straightway." ^
Now, besides the fight in which he engaged with Set, Horus
performed many other filial duties which endeared him to the
Egyptians. Thus he took the greatest care that every ceremony
which could possibly benefit the deceased was jDerformed on his
father's behalf, and every detail of the mummification of the god,
and of the method of swathing, and of the placing of amulets, etc.,
upon the body was watched by him with loving attention, and his
^ Chabas, Calendrier, Paris, ]863, pp. 29 ff.
^ BooTc of the Dead, Chap, clxxxiii., 11. 12 &.
490 HORUS, SON OF ISIS
filial affection became the pattern which was followed by every
pious Egyj)tian from time immemorial. We find, however, that
Horus was believed to help the dead generally, even as he helped
Osiris, and all men hoped that he would come to their assistance
after death, and act as a mediator between the judge of the Under-
world and themselves. In the Judgment Scene in the Booh of the
Dead (Papyrus of Ani, plates 3 and 4), Horus, the son of Isis,
leads the deceased, after his heart has been weighed, into the
presence of Osiris, and he says to his father, " I have come to thee,
" 0 Un-nefer, and I have brought unto thee Osiris Ani," and then
goes on to say that Thoth has weighed Ani's heart in the Balance
according to the decree of the gods, and has found it right and
true. He also asks Osiris that Ani may be allowed to appear in his
presence, and that cakes and ale may be given to him, and that he
may be among the followers of Horus for ever. In none of the
variants of the Judgment Scene do we find that the place of Horus
as introducer of the dead is taken by any other god, and there is
no doubt that this duty was assigned to him because it was
believed that Osiris would favourably receive those who were led
into his presence by the son who had done so much for him. From
the Pyramid Texts we learn that, at the time when man believed
that it was necessary to have a ladder in order to ascend into
heaven from the earth, Horus was regarded as the god of the
ladder, and that he was entreated to set up the ladder and to hold
it in place whilst the deceased climbed up it. Sometimes Ra held
one side of it whilst Horus held the other, and sometimes its
supporters were Horus and Set, but even so the deceased seems
sometimes to have experienced difficulty in ascending it, for we
read that Horus had to give him a push upwards with his two
fingers.^
More than this, howe\'er, was done for the deceased by Horus,
for he took the bodies of the dead under his care just as he took the
body of his father Osiris into his own hands, and superintended the
performance of his funeral rites and ceremonies. In this great
work he was assisted by a number of beings called Heru-shemsu,
^ English renderings of the passages Avill be found in my Eyijptian Magic,
pp. 52 ft.
HORUS, SON OF ISIS 491
^ ^ P ^ -/\ ^ j , i.e., " Followers of Horus." Now we know
from several passages in the Booh of the Dead that Osiris, Ra,
Nefer-Tem, Neb-er-tcher, Mehi, Hathor, and, in fact, all great
gods were ministered to by a number of lesser gods, but none of
these are of the importance of the followers of Horus, and none of
them are as old. We have already seen that the original Horus-
god, I y> ^ 7 '^iio represented the face of heaven, was
supposed to have long hair which hung down from his face, and which
probably supported it, and that in the myth of Shu the sujDports
of this god, i.e., the four pillars, 1 1| I. which held up the vast,
rectangular, iron plate that formed the floor of heaven were placed
in the tresses of Horus. At a later period, when the four followers
of Horus, son of Isis, were identified with the followers of the
older Horus, these gods were made to dwell near the pillars of Shu
and to have dominion over them, and also over the four quarters
of heaven, and they took the place of the earlier gods of the
cardinal points. In the Booh of the Dead these four children
of Horus play very prominent parts, and the deceased endeavoured
to gain their help and protection at all costs, both by offerings and
prayers. In the pictures of the funeral procession four men draw
along the coffin containing the mummied intestines of the deceased,
four animals are taken for sacrifice, and all the instruments used in
the ceremony of " opening the mouth," as well as the vases, and
boxes of unguents, etc., are in quadruplicate. Even prayers and
formulae are said four times over, e.g., in Chapter xL, the deceased
in addressing the Eater of the Ass says, " I know thee," four times;
and in Chapter cxxiv., he says, " I am pure," four times. Most
important of all, however, it was to remember that the four
children of Horus shared the protection of the body of the deceased
among them, and as far back as the Vth Dynasty we find that they
presided over his life in the underworld. The names of the four
gods are: — Hap, Sqa'^, Tuamutef, :^ "^ ^^ , Amset,
(]^=P'=^, and Qebhsennuf, ^ J 1 1? lU 0 ^ '^"=-; *l^i^ ^'^ ^^^^
order in which they are mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, but in
492 HORUS, SON OF ISIS
later times the order of the names and the spelling vary thus : —
Mestha, =] (j ^, Hapi, § (j^ , Tuamutef, ^^ J | ^^ ^'
and Qebh-sennuf, [8 | ^ ^ ^ ' '^■'^^ • '^^^ ^^^ arms of the de-
ceased were identified with Hapi and Tuamutef, and his two legs
with Amset and Qebhsennuf ; and when he went into the Sekhet-
Aaru they were his guides and went in with him, two on each side.
Hapi represented the north and protected the small viscerae of the
body ; Tuamutef represented the east, and protected the heart and
lungs ; Amset represented the south, and protected the stomach
and large intestines, and Qebhsennuf represented the west, and
protected the liver and the gall bladder. Associated with the four
gods, perhaps as female counterparts, were the goddesses ISTephthys,
Neith, Isis, and Selqet, or Serqet.
As Horus, son of Isis, Avas so thoroughly identified with
Horus the Elder, and with other forms of the rising sun, it is
not surprising to find that the sanctuaries of the god were very
numerous, and that they existed in all parts of the country ; the
names of a great many of these have been collected by Signor
Lanzone,^ and from them we learn that Horus, dweller in the two
Egypts, ' ^-^ ^ , was lord of Nubti, A] ^ (Ombos), and lord of
^^^' T^ (Thebes), and of Maam, y "^^^^^ c£V£) , Kenset, I " r\>^^
Het-Ant, n"™^, Re-ur, ^^^%*, Pe, °©, Behen, I) ^ c.^^^
Nekhen, ^ , Per-netchem, [z:z]|^©, Re-au, '^ ^
Hurent, l\^, Ka-qem, .^^, Reqetit, <^ ^ ^ (]() ^
Therer, ^^©, Bak, "J^ ^, xVat-aat, l^tJ ^ , Hu, ^^^ ^
Tchart, ^^, Aat-ab, k^^©, Hut, ^, Het-suten, ^ [J ^
Petchatcha, □ JJ ©, It, Q !](] 2, Rethma '^^^ ^, Heben, |J ^
Sekhem, ^ ^^^, Abtu, y J^©, Shes-en-meli, 8 pi, aa^vwv <^
0|, Hebt, ^2' Shep, ^^, Khat, 7^, Qali
Het-neh,
^ Op. eit., p. 569.
HORUS, SON OF ISIS 493
^ Q 1 ^ m ± 1. c:^^ _ga> ^
-' Tenretut, ^^^, Ant, | ^, and Baka,
The forms in which Horus, son of Isis, is depicted are both
numerous and interesting, and they show how completely he
absorbed the attributes of all the other Horus gods. Thus he is
represented as a child seated on a lotus flower, with one of his
forefingers touching his lips, and with the lock of hair on the side
of his head ; he wears the crowns of the South and North, and
holds both £\ and | .^ In another section he stands on the back
of a hippopotamus, into the head of which he is driving a spear ;
in this instance he is clearly identified with Heru-Behutet. In
late dynastic times the god was depicted in a great many fantastic
forms, and the various attributes which were ascribed to him are
indicated in many curious Avays. Thus as guardian of the funeral
coffer of Osiris he has the head of a hawk, on which is the triple
crown, with the body of a lion, and a tail in the form of a head
and neck of some unknown animal. Elsewhere he is represented
with seven heads, among which are those of a bull, a ram, a cat,
and a crocodile, and with the body of a man, ithyphallic, and the
legs and hoofs of a bull, and the wings of a bird ; in one hand he
holds a knife, and in the other a serpent.
But besides the attributes of the other Horus gods, Horus,
son of Isis, was endowed with many of the characteristics of other
gods. Thus with the god Anpu or Anubis, he becomes Heru-em-
Anpu, i.e., Horus as Anubis, and is said to dwell in the " divine
hall," ' I nn I i' ^^® recalls under this name the god " Her-
manubis," who is mentioned by Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, § 61)
and by Diodorus (lines 18, 87). This dual god is represented in
the form of a man with the head of a jackal, and it is impossible to
distinguish him by his picture from the two jackal gods Anpu, or
Anubis, and Ap-uat, who are only two forms of one and the same
god. Strictly speaking, Anpu is the " opener of the roads of the
South, the power of the two lands," \/^^ i Y ^ j)^ and
Apuat is the "opener of the roads of the North, the power of
^ See Lanzone, op. cit,, pll. 214 ff.
494
HORUS, SON OF ISIS
heaven," \/^
^ 111
?
D ^
The two jackal gods are often
seen depicted on stelae, Avhere they symbolize the two halves of
the year, and the night and the day sky, and tlie periods of waxing
and waning of the powers of nature in summer and winter.
The particular form of Horus Avhich was identified with
n n AAAA^\
Horus, son of Isis, was Horus of Hebennu, ^ Jq^©? the
Hipponon of the Greeks, where also Anubis was specially venerated.
The identification of Horus, son of Isis, with Anubis is easy to
explain, for both gods assisted in mummifying the dead body of
Osiris, and it is expressly stated in the Booh of the Dead (xvii.
125 ff.), that it is Anubis wdio passes through the purification
chamber in the Mesqet (t\\\ ^, and that he stood "behind the
chest which contained the inner parts of Osiris." According
to the same chapter (lines 100-108), it was Anubis who
appointed the Seven Spirits, *' the followers of their lord Sepa,"
— «— aK^ "^v ^^^ c^ ? to be the protectors of the dead body of
Osiris. One authority quoted in the same chapter stated that the
Seven Spirits,
O
I 111
I
I ill
, were the Four Children of Horus,
already mentioned above, and Maa-atef-f, .^
and Kheri-beq-f, ^^ w )] J ^ | "^^^ ^
, and Heru-khenti-maati,
1
^ w
but another authority gives the names of the
Seven Spirits as follows: — 1. Netcheh-netcheh ; 2. Aaqetet ;
3. An-erta-nef-bes-f-khenti-heh-f; 4. Aq-her-ammi-unnut-f ; 5.
Tesher-maati-ammi-het-Anes ; 6. Ubes-hra-per-em-khetkhet ; 7.
Maa-em-kerli-an-nef-em-hru.^ In connexion Avith these must be
1 Bool- of the Dead, Chap, cxlii., § iv. 24-, 25.
AAA/WS n AAA/\AA
. 2
:1 4
o
0
^T^f
O^o
I 7^
ra tk o
ci ^ 1^
-A. 7. ^
s
1^1
HARPOCRATES 495
mentioned the goddess Hetep-sekhus, ^^ q ''^^^^P^'
who is identified either Avith the Eye of Ra or with the flame
which follows Osiris to burn up his enemies, and the assessors of
that section of the Underworld which is called An-aareretef,
A , or An-aretf, H ^ ^ , i.e., the
" place where nothing grows," the chief of whom was Heku-netch-
HiiA = ATEF-F, ^k 5^ '^ O V (1 ^ jj ^^^_ ^ qj. " Horus, the
aveno;er of his father."
"O
15. Heru-pa-khart, ^^ Ji aK ^ <=> ^') Jfj i-e., " Horus
the Child." We have already described Horus the Child, who was
the son and successor of Horus the Elder, and brief mention must be
made of Horus the Child who was the son and successor of Osiris.
The greater number of the attributes which belonged to the old
Horus gods were transferred to the son of Isis and Osiris, especially
in late dynastic times when the worship of Osiris was dominant in
Egypt, and Horus the Child became the type of the new birth, and
new life, the first hours of the day, and the first days of the month,
and the first months of the year, and in fact of everything which
was young and vigorous. Soon, however, the characteristics of
the great forms of the Sun-god were added to his own, and his
original conception as Horus the Child was somewhat forgotten ;
at times it is very difiicult to distinguish in the texts exactly
which Horus is referred to. In all the great sanctuaries of Egypt,
from the period of the New Empire onwards, we find that Horus
the Child, or Harpocrates, was identified by the priests of the local
gods as a form of their principal deities in which the chiefs of the
companies or triads of gods had renewed and rejuvenated them-
selves. The late Dr. Brugsch collected a large number of examples
of this fact,^ and he proved that as Heru-sma-taui-pa-khart he was
identified with Tem, and was said to be son of Heru-khuti and
Hathor; that joined with Ahi, l| | (](] Tl, Harpocrates became a
form of Ra, and was called " son of Hathor, to whom Isis gave
birth," and was regarded as the offspring of Un-nefer, -^^^^ I
1 Religion unci Mythologie, p. 373.
496 HARPOCRATES
i.e., of Osiris ; and that he was also made to be the renewed form
of the gods Shu, Seb, Khensu, and Amsu, or Min.
In connexion with Horus, son of Isis, in one or other of his
forms must be mentioned the interesting legend which is preserved
in the cxiith Chapter of the Booh of the Dead, and which has
reference to the district or place called Khat, j| "^ ^ ' ? '^f ^^^
dweller in Khat, in the city of Anpet, ^aaaaa ©, in the nome of Ha-
"1 ie
meliit, v^, i.e., the sixteenth nome of Lower Egypt. Strictly
^ 1 1 1 1
speaking, Anpet was the name of the temple and quarter of the
city of Mendes, the local triad of which consisted of Ba-neb-Tetet,
37 n ^, Ha-mehit, _S ^'^^^^ X 4l e^ ^' ^^^ Heru-pa-khart.
Mendes was full of associations with the worship of the god Osiris,
for in the temple there were preserved the phallus and the back-
bone of Osiris ; the temple was called Het-baiut, IJ ^^ I i 1 @ ? i-®-?
" House of the Rams," and the place where the relics were found
Per-khent, ' ' d£j ^ -^ The rams here referred to recall the legend
in which the Ram of Mendes was said to unite within himself the
souls of Rfi, Osiris, Shu, and Khepera, and he was known as the
"Ram with four heads upon one neck," ^^^^^= J ^ ^.^
It is possible that he is also referred to in the text of Pepi I. (line
419) where a god with four faces is mentioned, ^=:^ ^ ^ ^ '^^'
In the Chapter above mentioned the deceased is made to ask a
number of gods, " Do ye know for what reason the city of Pe hath
" been given unto Horus ? " and he goes on to say, " I, even I,
" know it though ye know it not. Behold, Ra gave the city to him
" in return for the injury to his Eye ; for which cause Ra said to
" Horus, ' Let me see what is coming to pass in thine eye,' and
" forthwith he looked thereat. Then Ra said unto Horus, ' Look
" at that black pig,' and he looked, and straightway an injury was
" done unto his eye, that is to say, a mighty storm [took place
C^^^ D ^ N^ "~2^
See de Rouge, Geogvdjjhe Ancienne, j). 114.
HARPOCRATES 497
" therein]. Then said Horus unto Ra, ' Verily, my eye seems as if
" it were an eye upon which Suti had inflicted a blow ' ; and [thus
" saying] he ate his heart/ Then said Ra to those gods, ' Place ye
" him in his chamber, and he shall do well.' Now the black pig
" was Suti (Set) who had transformed himself into a black pig, and
" he it was who had aimed the blow of fire which struck the eye of
" Horus. Then said Ra unto those gods, ' The pig is an abominable
'' ' thing unto Horus ; but he shall do well, although the pig is an
" ' abomination unto him.' Then the company of the gods, who
" were among the divine Followers of Horus when he existed in
" the form of his own child, said, ' Let sacrifices be made of his
^' bulls, and of his goats, and of his pigs.' Now the father of
" Mesthi, Hapi, Tuamutef, and Qebh-sennuf is Horus, and their
" mother is Isis. Then said Horus to Ra, ' Give me two divine
" ' brethren in the city of Pe and two divine brethren in the city of
" ' Nekhen, who [have sprung] from my body and who shall be with
" ^ me in the guise of everlasting judges, and then shall the earth
" ' blossom and thunder-clouds and rain be done away.' And the
" name of Horus became Her-uatch-f, '^ f=5|1 ^^-=— ."
In addition to the forms of Horus mentioned in the above
paragraphs the Pyramid Texts make known the following: —
1. Heru-Aah, ^_^|^> i-e-, Horus, the Moon-god ;2 2. Heru-
KHENT-PERU, ^ rffk _^ ; ^ 3. HeRU-AM-HeNNU, ^ (1 1\ ^UlS'/
rv\^ mil LjLJ * Kins 1 wvy ■ ■ '
and Heru of Tat, ^^ c:^^ "^ Z .^ According to the same
authorities Horus possessed one white eye and one black,
^^ ^^I^ ^ ''^ Avhich king Unas is said to have taken to
illumine his face ; and two other titles of the god are " Horus of
the two blue eyes," ^ ® P J '^ ^^'>' ^^^ " Horus of the two
red 1 eyes," ^ ^'^^ /«>^ ^^^ .^ In the Theban Recension of the
^ I.e., he lost his temper and raged.
2^^:^ (]<c:=> ^^^=^ I ^(j o|^, Teta, 1. 365.
3 Unas, 1. 202. * Unas, 1. 211. & Unas, 1. 218.
6 Unas, 1. 37. 7 Unas, 1. 369. « xjnas, 1. 869.
K k
498 MISCELLANEOUS HORUS GODS
Booh of the Dead these titles are also mentioned (Chap, clxxvii. 7)
as well as the following: — Heru-aa-abu, -^^ i i n jj ' ^^^^^^
^ ^ w
ahai, ^^ °f (jv Heru-ami-abu-her-ab-ami-khat, '^
1^ ^ (j - - \\ ^, Hem-ami-athen, ^ () - - ^ W (] ^ ^j Heru-
em-khebit, '^' l\ \^ 4, Heru-neb-ureret, ^^ ^^37 <=> ^ A
Heru-her-neferu, ^^ "^ I "^^^ ^ ^ """^ i , Heru-khent-heh, v
v^ ^ ^ ^ I , Heru-khenti-heh, ^ ^ ^ ^^ Mr i , Heru-sekhai,
^ P 1 11 ^ ^ ' Hem-shet-hra, ^ ^ ^ f , etc. Finally, in
the text of Unas (line 462 fF.) we meet with the form of Heru-
Sept, ^. PA' ^^^ ^® mentioned in connexion with Ra, Tem,
AAA/W\
Thoth, and Horus of Tat, and the star Nekhekh, „^. Heru-Sept
is a form of Horus, presumably the god of the rising sun, united to
the particular form of the same god Sept which Avas worshipped
in the twentieth nome of Lower Egypt, i.e., the nome Sept,
(i^. In the examples given by Signor Lanzone of the various
forms under which Sept is depicted he is sometimes seen in the
form of a man having upon his head either the symbol A , or double
plumes, [11 , or a disk, © , and sometimes in the form of a mummied
hawk, ^ , with plumes on his head, and the symbol A in front of
him, and the mendt, (^ , on his back. The titles which accompany
these representations describe him as the " lord of the east," i.e.,
the eastern part of the Delta and Arabia. On a shrine discovered
at Saft al-Henna by M. Naville he appears in the form of the god
Bes, J P ^ , who is represented with outspread arms, hands, and
wings, and with feathers on the top of his head. In this form
I lit II I til ^^\ /y~) I
he is called, " Sept, the smiter of the Menti," ^^ ^^ ^^ i,
i.e., the tribes of the Eastern Desert and Arabia. Sept was
clearly a god of battles, h4^' ^^^ ^*^ ^'^® called
the " Bull that trampleth on the Menti ; " he was the
MISCELLANEOUS HORUS GODS 499
" strengthener of Egypt, and the protector of the temples of the
gods." ^
The principal seat of the worship of the god was in the
metropolis of the nome, i.e., at Per-Sept, A VV S' ^^ Kesem,
Q ^^ ^ , was a distinct city from Per-Sept a temple to the god
may have stood there also. The female counterpart of Heru-Sept
was a form of the goddess Hathor to whom, in the twentieth nome
of Lower Egypt, the name Septit, P^^fl^Jj) was given; his
sanctuary contained some fine nebes ^ trees, hence its name dst
nebes, jj ^ ^^^ JO''" ^^o^se of nebes trees." As the '^ lord of
battle," ^^i^ Q^ , Sept is depicted in the form of a hawk-headed
lion with the tails of a lion and a hawk, and in his hands, which
are those of a man, he holds a bow and a club ; on his head are a
disk ^ and plumes. Sept is mentioned even in the Book of the Dead
with the attributes of a god of war, and in Chapter xvii. (line 30)
he is said to " thwart the acts of the foes of Keb-er-tcher." In the
xxxiind Chapter the deceased drives away the Crocodile of the
South, and says, " I am Sept " ; and in the cxxxth Chapter
(line 11) we read of the "slaughtering block of the god Septu,"
[^ "^ A V \^ • ^P *^ ^^® present no satisfactory explanation
has been given of the object A which is the symbol of the god
Sept, but it appears to have been some kind of a triangle ; a figure
or model of it was preserved at Amen-kheperutet, ^^ ^ ^^~^ fl ^ ,
which is described in the Edfu list as A -^ ] aaaaaa ^^ /wwvs ^v ^
i.e., " the hidden |^ of Khas (?) en-Sept."
^ De Rouge, Geographie Ancienne, p. 141.
^ The Cordia Sebestena, or Zizyphus Lotos W., according to Brugsch, Religion,
p. 567.
^ Lanzone, op. cit., p. 1048.
( 500 )
CHAPTER XVI
THE GREAT TRIAD OF MEMPHIS, PTAH, ° § jf ,
SEKHET, ^f ^, AND I-EM-HETEP, ^f)!)^^^^-
THE greatest of all the old gods of Memphis was undoubtedly
Ptah, ° I ^ , or Ptah-neb-ankh, ° | ^c:7 ^ ^ ^, and
his worship, in one form or another, goes back to the earliest part
of the dynastic period. He has usually been regarded as a form
of the Sun-god, and as the personification of the rising sun, either
at the time when it begins to rise above the horizon or immediately
after it has risen. The name has often been explained to mean
" Opener," and to be derived from a root which was cognate in
meaning with the well-known Semitic root pdthakh, nrip^ in fact
Ptah was thought to be the " Opener " of the day just as Tem was
considered to be the " Closer " of the day. The chief drawback,
however, to the acceptance of this derivation is the fact that Ptah
never forms one of the groups of the chief forms of the Sun-god in
the texts, and his attributes are entirely different from those of
Khepera, Tem, Heru, and Ra. Moreover, although the word
ptahj ft , is found in Egyptian it never has the meaning " to
open," in the sense of opening a door, and the determinative which
follows it,^ *— , proves conclusively that although it does mean
^' to open" it is always in the sense of "to engrave, to carve, to
chisel," and the like ; compare Heb. D^-^? " engraving, sculpture."
The meaning proposed for the name "Ptah" by Dr. Brugsch is
" sculptor, engraver," and many passages in the texts of all periods
make it plain that Ptah was the chief god of all handicraftsmen,
^ Brugsch, Worterhuch, p. 528.
PTAH THE ARTIFICER 501
and of all workers in metal and stone. What the form of the god
was originally it is, unfortunately, impossible to say, but from the
titles which the dynastic Egyptians gave to him it is clear that
his main characteristics did not change from the period of the
Ilnd Dynasty to that of the Ptolemies and Eomans. At a very
early period he was identified with one of the great primeval gods
of Egypt, and he was called " the very great god who came into
"being in the earliest time," ^^ "^ ^ Mi_^ ^^; "father
" of fathers, Power of powers," ^ ^ ^ '^^ -r "[nn. " father of
" beginnings, and creator of the egg[s] of the Sun and Moon,"
^^I'^^IP^i 0^--^; "lord of Maat, king of the two
" lands, the god of the Beautiful Face in Thebes, who created his
" own image, who fashioned his own body, who hath established Maat
throughout the two lands ; " ^ " Ptah, the Disk of heaven, illuminer
" of the two lands with the fire of his two eyes." ^ In the text of
Teta (lines 87, 97) the "workshop of Ptah," |^ °|, is men-
tioned, and the general sense of the passages indicates that it was
Ptah who was believed to fashion the new bodies in which the
souls of the dead were to live in the Underworld. Ptah, as we
shall see later from the passages quoted from the Book of the Dead,
was the great artificer in metals, and he was at once smelter, and
caster, and sculptor, as well as the master architect and designer
of everything which exists in the world. The Greeks and the
Latins rightly identified one form of him with Hephaistos and
Vulcan.
Ptah was the fellow-worker with Khnemu in carrying into
effect the commands concerning the creation of the universe which
were issued by Thoth, and whilst the latter was engaged in
fashioning man and animals, the former was employed in the
construction of the heavens and the earth. The large rectangular
, Lanzone, op. cit., p. 240.
I AAAAAA IJ
D I []^ ^ ,=, Pl"^ ^ ^ ^® ^K_, I6,U, p.240.
502 FORMS OF PTAH
iron slab which formed the floor of heaven and the roof of the sky
was beaten out by Ptali, and he and his assistants made the stays
and supports which held it in position. In the character of
architect of the universe he partakes of the nature of Thoth,
especially in respect of his title " lord of Maat ; " and, as the god
who beat out the iron firmament with a hammer and supported it,
his attributes resemble those of Shu. In other capacities he was
supposed to be endowed with powers which we are wont to
associate with other gods, and thus we find enumerated in religious
and funeral texts Ptah-Asar (Ptah-Osiris), Ptah-Hapi, Ptah-Nu,
Ptah-Seker, Ptah-Seker-Asar, Ptah-Seker-Tem, Ptah-Tanen,
and the like. The part which Ptah in his various forms plays in
the Booh of the Dead is well illustrated by the following: — In
Chapter iv. he is said to come forth from the Great Temple of the
Aged One in Annu ; in Chapter xi. the deceased says, " I shall
" stand up like Horus, I shall sit down like Ptah, I shall be mighty
^' like Thoth, and I shall be strong like Tem." From Chapter xxiii.
we learn that Shu or Ptah performed the ceremony of " opening
the mouth " of the gods with an iron knife ; in Chapter xlii. the
feet of the deceased are identified with the feet of Ptah ; in
Chapter Ixiv., line 8, he is said to have covered his sky with
crystal; Chapter Ixxxii. is a text by the use of which a man
transforms himself into Ptah, when his tongue becomes like that of
the god; in Chapter cxlv., line 67, the "writings of Ptah" are
referred to ; in Chapter cli.A Mestha tells the deceased that he
has " stablished his house firmly according to what Ptah hath
commanded ; " and in Chajoter cliii., line 6, the " hook of Ptah "
is mentioned ; in Chapter clxvi. Ptah is said to overthrow
the enemies of the deceased (see also Chapter clxxii. 10). In
Chapter cli. the hair of the deceased is compared to that of Ptah-
Seker, and in Chapter clxx. this god is said to give him help with his
khakeru, ^:r:::^ ti \ ^ i weapons from his divine house. In a hymn to
Osiris (Chapter xv.) Osiris is addressed as Un-nefer Heru-khuti,
and as "Ptah-Seker-Tem, ^ I ^^^^ ^^ ^^^tor^' ^^ Annu, the
"lord of the hidden place, and the creator of Het-ka-Ptah (i.e.,
" ' the House of the Double of Ptah,' or Memphis) ; " finally, Ptah-
FORMS OF PTAH 503
Tanen is mentioned in Chapter clxxxiii., line 15, as having caused
to be inscribed certain decrees concerning Horus upon an " iron
tablet."
The commonest form in which Ptah is represented is that of a
bearded man with a bald head who is shrouded in a close-fitting
garment, from an ojDening in the front of which project his two
hands ; from the back of his neck hangs the mendt, symbol of
pleasure and happiness, and in his hands he holds a sceptre, j,
and the emblems of "life," -V-, and " stability," u. When standing
upright his feet rest upon a pedestal made in the shape of the
sign madt / — i, and when seated his throne rests upon a pedestal
of similar shape. At the back of standing figures of the god we
sometimes see an obelisk, J] , or the tet, u , which symbolizes both
"stability" and the tree trunk in which the body of Osiris was hidden
by Isis. Ptah under his forms of Ptah-Nu, | w) ^_^ Jf j and
Ptah- H API, ^ § J) § n "^^X^ rjj ? naerely represents the union of
the great celestial workman and architect with the primeval
elements of earth and water, and there are no representations
specially set apart for these forms.
On the other hand, his forms of Ptah-Sekee, or Ptah-Sekee-
AsAit, °|g|, °i^|^, and Ptah-Tanbk, \
11. A, must be specially considered. Ptah-Sekee represents
a personification of the union of the primeval creative power
with a form of the inert powers of darkness, or in other words,
Ptah-Seker is a form of Osiris, that is to say, of the night sun, or
dead Sun-god. Sekee is depicted in the form of a hawk-headed
man in mummied form resembling that of Ptah, and his hands
project from the front of his close-fitting garment and hold the
emblems of sovereignty and dominion, f , ^ , | ; sometimes he has
the head of a man and holds in each hand a knife. ^ Seker was
originally a power of darkness, or of the night, which in later
times was identified with forms of the night sun like Tem. He is
^ Lanzone, op. cit., pi. 368, N^o. 4.
504
THE SEKER BOAT
called " the great god, who came into being
" in the beginning, he who resteth upon the
" darkness," 1_^<=>T-=^=^'^
I" ^^T^. In the xviith Chapter of the
Book of the Dead (line 113) occurs a petition
in which the deceased begs to be delivered
from the " great god who carrieth away
" the soul, who eateth hearts, and who
" feedeth upon offal, the guardian of the
" darkness, the god who is in the Seker
," and in the explanation
Seker-Asar.
" boat,
of the passage which is given in answer to
the question, " Who is this ? " the god who is
in the Seker boat is said to be either Suti,
l^^^S^' '''' Smam-ur, P^^^s3
^^, the soul of Seb. Thus it is clear that
Seker was an ancient spirit or god whose attributes were such that
he might well be represented by Set, or Suti, the enemy of Ka, or
by the soul of the earth-god Seb. In comparatively early dynastic
times Seker was
exalted to the
position of god of
that portion of the
Underworld which
was allotted to the
souls of the in-
habitants of Mem-
phis and the neigh-
bourhood, and it
is tolerably certain
that he was re-
garded as the tute-
lary deity of the
necropolis of Sak-
^'f^^^' rtolemy Euergetes and the Ileiiuu Boat.
SEKER OR HENNU BOAT 505
The Sekee Boat which has been mentioned above is often
represented on sepulchral monuments and papyri, and it was
certainly made to play a very prominent part in certain solemn,
sacred ceremonies. It was not made in the form of an ordinary
boat, but one end of it was very much higher than the other, and
was made in the shape of the head of some kind of gazelle or oryx ;
the centre of the boat was occupied by a carefully closed coffer
which was surmounted by a hawk with protecting wings stretched
out over the top of it. This coffer contained the body of the dead
Sun-god Af, or of Osiris, and it rested upon a framework or sledge
which was provided with runners. On the great day of the
festival of Seker which was celebrated in many places throughout
Egypt, the ceremony of placing the Seker boat upon its sledge was
performed at sunrise, at the moment when the rays of the sun
were beginning to spread themselves over the earth. The whole
ceremony was under the direction of the high priest of Memphis,
whose official title was " Ur kherp hem," ^=* f f ? " ^•®-5 gi'sat chief
of the hammer " ; this official was expected to lift the Seker Boat
upon its sledge, and to march at the head of the procession of
priests which drew the loaded sledge round the sanctuary. By
this action the revolution of the sun and other celestial bodies was
symbolized, but no texts explaining the symbolism have come
down to us. From the inscriptions which are found at Memphis
and in the neighbourhood we know that the office of high priest of
Ptah was considered to be a most honourable position, and that
many men of noble family and of high rank held it as far back as
the period of the Ilnd Dynasty. Now since the priestly office
existed in those remote times it is only reasonable to assume that
the Seker Boat also existed, and that the ceremonies with which it
was used in the later period were also performed in the earlier ;
the god Seker was, even when the Pyramids were built, an ancient
god, and the chief characteristics of his worship must be as old as
the god himself.
The name given to the Seker Boat is " Hennu," 8 "^ ^ ^/,
and it is mentioned several times in the BooJc of the Dead, and
sometimes in connexion with traditions of great importance.
506 SEKER OR HENNU BOAT
Thus after the Ixivth Chapter we have a rubric which states
that the composition was found in the masonry below the shrine of
Hennu during the reign of Semti (Hesepti) a king of the 1st
Dynasty ; now Hennu can only be the god of the Hennu boat,
and the shrine of Hennu must be the place where it was kept. A
most valuable proof of the antiquity of this boat is found on an
ebony tablet in the British Museum ^ Avhich was made for the royal
chancellor Hemaka, who flourished during the reign of Semti,
whose Horus name was Ten. On this we see a representation of
the king dancing before Osiris, who is seated within a shrine on
the top of a flight of steps, and in the register immediately below
it is a figure of the Hennu Boat. The Seker or Hennu Boat was
probably a form of the Sektet Boat, i.e., the boat in which the
sun sailed over the sky during the second half of his daily journey,
and in which he entered the Underworld in the evening, for Ra
the Aged, ^ "1 f^ ? is said to be like Horus, and Ra the Babe,
^ i ''^^ , to be like Seker. The sanctuaries of Seker must have
been extremely numerous ^ in Lower Egypt in very early dynastic
times, but it appears that before the great development of Ra
worship took place, the god Seker was already identified with and
merged in Ptah, and that these gods were adored together in one
temple. The forms in which Ptah-Seker is represented are
interesting, for they illustrate the attributes of the double god, and
prove that it was Ptah who usurped the characteristics of Seker,
and that Seker was the older god. Ptah-Seker is often depicted
in the form of a man who wears upon his head a crown composed
of disk, plumes, horns, and uraei with disks on their heads, ^^ ;
a cognate form is perhaps that reproduced by Lanzone ^ in which
the god, Avho in this case is called " Ptah whose double plumes are
lofty," has upon his head horns, plumes, and a uraeus, and a uraeus
upon his forehead. Another interesting form is that of a mummy
with a disk and the two feathers of Maat, J^qR, upon his head.^
Elsewhere he is found in the usual form of Ptah seated upon
* No. 32,650. - See a list given by Lanzone, op. cit., p. 1117.
3 Op. cit., pi. 94, No. 4. i Ibid., pi. 95.
PTAH-SEKER-ASAR 507
a throne behind Osiris and followed by Anubis, Horus, son of Isis,
and Hathor.
Under the name of Ptah-Seker-Asar we find Ptah and
Seker united with Osiris to form a remarkable triad, which is
depicted in various ways. A common representation of the god is
the hawk, with the White Crown and plumes upon his head,
standing upon a low pedestal, from the front of which projects a
serpent ; in this form he is often met with on painted coffins and
sepulchral chests. In the Papyrus of Anhai (Brit. Mus., plate 5)
the god is seated within a shrine in human form with the crown,
iy , upon his head ; behind him stand Isis and Nephthys. The
titles here given to him are, " Dweller in the secret place, great
" god, lord of Ta-tchesertet, king of eternity, governor of ever-
"lastingness," t ?S^q^^1 H - r^^ ^Ml "-M
I 3 X^ . Before the god is the skin of the pied bull, of which
the head has been cut off, with blood dripping from it into a bowl,
and perched on the side of the throne is his son Horus in the form
of a hawk. The cornice of the shrine in which the god is seated
is composed of uraei with disks on their heads, and before it stand
the Mer goddess of the South, X , wearing a red garment, and
the Mer goddess of the North, "W , wearing a blue garment,
and it is quite clear from the general arrangement of the vignette
that in the XXIInd Dynasty Ptah-Seker-Asar was wholly
identified with Osiris. A very interesting form of the triune god
is that in which he appears as a squat pigmy with a large, bald
head, and thick limbs ; on the top of his head he usually has a
beetle, but occasionally plumes are given to him. An examination
of the variants of this form proves that he was supposed to possess
all the virile power of Amsu, or Min, and the creative power of
Khepera, which is symbolized by the beetle, and the youth and
vigour of Harpocrates, which is represented by the lock of hair on
the right side of his head; and as sometimes he stands upon a
crocodile, and holds a serpent in each hand, he must have possessed
besides the powers of several of the great solar gods. Ptah-Seker-
Asar is, then, like Osiris, the type and symbol of the resurrection
508 PTAH-TANEN
from the dead, and he has been fittingly described as the " triune
god of the resurrection " ; that he was the outcome of some local
Memphite belief, or the result of some compromise between the
priests of Osiris and the priests of the old Memphite god is toler-
ably certain, but there is no evidence to show exactly what belief,
or doctrine, or dogma was associated with this mysterious god who
united within himself the attributes of Seker, and those of Ptah
the architect and builder of the material world, and of Khepera
the self-begotten and self-born, and Osiris the giver of everlasting
life.
Finally must be mentioned Ptah in his connexion with the
primeval god Tenen, a^ A, or Ta-tu-nen, ["^^ ^ "v^ -1-^ iS? or
Ta-thunen, ■■■ £=5 ^ 4"f ^7 or Ta-thu-nenet, __.4-4- ^'
This god is represented in the form of a man, either sitting or
standing, who wears on his head the crown, ^y , and holds in his
hands the symbols of sovereignty and dominion, ^, | , and 1;
in a figure reproduced by Lanzone ^ we see him seated upon the
oval object, ( — ). Another figure represents the god seated with
a potter's Avheel before him, which he works with his foot, and on
the upper part of it is the Qg^ of the world which he is fashioning
with his hands ; elsewhere he is depicted with a scimitar in his
right hand, which suggests that in one form he was regarded as a
destructive power of nature, or as a warrior-god. Tenen, or
Ta-Tenen, must have been one of the earliest gods of Lower Egypt,
and have been a personification of a nature power, the exact
attributes of which appear to have been unknown even to the
Egyptians. In the early part of the dynastic period it was thought
that Ptah, the local god of Memphis, might be fittingly identified
with Tenen, or Ta-Tenen, and his name was, therefore, joined to
that of the older god, just as in later days the name of Amen was
joined to that of Ra ; later Tenen and Ta- tenen were merely forms
and names of Ptah. From a hymn to Ptah -Tenen," which is pro-
bably a product of the XXth or XXIst Dynasty, we may gain some
Op. cit., pi. 401, No. 3.
* For the hieratic text see Lepsius, Denhndler, vi., pi, 118.
HYMN TO PTAH-TANEN
509
idea of the meaning of the name Ta-tenen, " Ta," , is of course
" earth," and "Tenen," aaaaaa, is probably to be connected with the
word, -1-4-^,^,^^^? 6wew, or nen, which means "inertness, in-
activity, rest, motionless," and the like, and if this derivation be
correct Ta-Tenen must be the god of the inert but living matter of
the earth.
The passage on which this view is based is a very difficult
one, and appears to read, " There was given to thee a Sekhem
" (i.e.. Power) upon the earth in its things which were in a state
" of inactivity, and thou didst gather them together after thou
" didst exist in thy form of Ta-Tenen, in thy becoming the ' Uniter
" of the two lands,' which thy mouth begot and which thy hands
" fashioned." ^ It is, as Dr. Brugsch suggested, quite possible
that in this passage the writer was not discussing the derivation
of the name Tenen, or Ta-Tenen, seriously, and was only making
a play upon the words of similar sound. In the hymn to Ptah-
Tenen already mentioned we find the following address to the god
and titles : — " Homage to thee, 0 Ptah-Tenen, thou great god,
" whose form is hidden ! Thou openest thy soul and thou Avakest
"up in peace, 0 father of the fathers of all the gods, thou Disk
" of heaven ! Thou illuminest it with thy two Eyes, and
" thou lightest up the earth with thy brilliant rays in peace."
It
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s: I
y ^s ^^ Lm ' Ms n ' ' • ■'"^ *^® ^^^^^ which follow he is
called the "begetter of men," (s (*=u)
I , the " maker
1 A fl
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510
HYMN TO PTAH-TANEN
of their lives," the " creator of the gods," " he who passeth through
eternity and everlastingness," P J ^ i ^ I "^ , " of multitudinous
forms,"
make to him," ^
his own limbs,"
ITU
D
^ 111
" the hearer of prayers which men
=> "J ^ ^^ ^ j , '' builder of
=— -^, and maker of his body,
" when as yet heaven and earth were not created, and when the
" waters had not come forth," ffi <=> ^ W <=> '"
Jf15^Zi1^
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" Thou didst knit tos^ether the
s
" earth, thou didst gather together thy members, thou didst
" embrace thy limbs, and thou didst find thyself in the condition
" of the One who made his seat, and who fashioned (or, moulded)
" the two lands.^ Thou hadst no father to beget thee in thy
" person, and thou hadst no mother to give birth unto thee ; thou
" didst fashion thyself without the help of any other being. Fully
" equipped thou didst come forth fully equipped." ^ Next we have
an allusion to thy "aged son," "^^ Jj ^^zi^s M i^ 1 ' ^•®*' "^^'
and to the dissipation of night and darkness by the sun and moon,
which are called the " Eyes " of Ptali-Tenen. The hymn continues,
Thy feet are upon the earth and thy head is in the heights above
in thy form of the dweller in the Tuat. Thou bearest up the
work which thou hast made, thou supportest thyself by thine
own strength, and thou boldest up thyself by the vigour of thine
own hands. . . . The upper part of thee is heaven and the lower
part of thee is the Tuat." <^ <^
n p>^
I I I
i^rii
^vi
/"/^-vvs ra ^ 1-1?
s
s
^ r=a '^ ^<
(2
P^AI^P^M
HYMN TO PTAH-TANEN 511
0^ n ^ ^ . ft^ .r ^ -C -Zf, ^
The winds come forth from thy nostrils, and the celestial water
from thy mouth, and the staff of life (i.e., wheat, barley, etc.),
proceeds from thy back ; thou makest the earth to bring forth
fruit, and gods and men have abundance, and they see Meh-urit
cattle in thy field. When thou art at rest the darkness cometh,
and when thou openest thy two eyes beams of light are produced.
Thou shinest in thy crystal form according to [the wont of]
thy majesty The company of the gods of thy supreme
company praise thee, and they acclaim thee at thy rising and
hymn thee at thy setting in the land of life." A few lines lower
down Ptah-Tenen is called the ''great god who stretched out the
heavens, who maketh his disk to revolve in the body of Nut and
to enter into the body of Nut in his name of Ra, Moulder of
gods, and of men, and of everything which is produced, maker of
all lands, and countries, and the Grreat Green Sea in his name of
Khepee-ta (m.'^Jj Bringer of Hapi ( J^ X^ i^ ) from his
source, making to flourish the staff of life, maker of grain which
Cometh forth from him in his name Nu the Aged ( ^^^^^ i^^ly
who maketh fertile the watery mass of heaven, and maketh to
come forth the water on the mountains to give life to men
and women {'^^ (Ju ^^ V§^ J) i) in his name of Aei-ankh
•<2>- ■¥- ^ i\u Maker of the Tuat with all its arrangements,
who driveth away the flame from those who live in their corners
in his name of Suten-taui Q ^ "" ^ I), King of eternity
and everlastingness, and lord of life." Among other titles of the
god in this hymn we have: — "Babe, born daily," ® (1(1 ^^ rfl Ofl
^_^; "Aged one on the borders of eternity," ^^ ft "II" ^^^
<^ ^ 1^ ^ i ® i' " ^^^^ ^^® traversing eternity," (1 "^ Q. j^
^ J J ^ ^Q ; " Inert one passing over all his aspects," 11 ^'"'^ (§\
A ^ "^"=^5 '' Exalted one without his strength," zi 'v\ V
512 SHRINES OF PTAH
"^ "^^ D I "^^^ ''^-^^ ; " Lord of the hidden throne, hidden is he,"
"form is unknown," fl'^^lf^ -^ •=* Jl 'fe ^ J ^^ f\ ; "Lord
of years, giver of life at will," '^=^i,||^__,7® <r>li)^^'
The. above extracts are sufficient to show the importance of
the god Ptah-Tenen in the eyes of the Egyptians about B.C. 1100,
at which time, if we may judge from palaeographical evidence, the
hymn was probably written, and there is no reason for supposing
that he was thought less of during any period of Egyptian history.
The papyrus upon which the text is inscribed is said to have been
found at Thebes, and there is no doubt that the style of writing
closely resembles the fine bold hand of the great papyrus of
Rameses III., king of Egypt about B.C. 1200, which also was
discovered at Thebes ; we should not, however, expect to find, in
the city of Amen-Ra, the king of the gods, papyri containing
hymns to Ptali-Tenen, the god of Memphis, in which this god is
made to possess all the attributes of all the great gods of Egypt,
yet such has been, undoubtedly, the case. The fact that the triad
of Ptah, Sekhet, and Nefer-Tem was Avorshipped at Thebes is
another proof of the influence which the priests of Heliopolis
exerted over the religious views of the Thebans in almost every
period of Egyptian history after the Vlth Dynasty.
Returning now to the consideration of Ptah in his simplest
form, it must be noted that the principal centre of his worship was
It in ^ 1
in the city of Men-nefer, T A , i.e., Memphis, the capital of
AAAAAA 0 ti
Aneb-hetch, ^ y , the first nome of Lower Egypt. The commonest
names for Memphis in the religious texts are : — 1. Ha-nefer,
^l(\®' 2. Het-ka-PtaV Oi=^ °i V®' ^^^^ ^^^^^^' *^^
Greek name for Egypt, "AtyvuTo^^ has been commonly derived.
3. Khut-taui, [O^ g^, i.e., "horizon of the two lands."
1 I.e., " House of the Double of Ptah."
ASAR-HAPI OR SERAPIS
518
Anebu, y^,
4. Het-ka-khnem-neteru,^ P ^ '^ Q 1
i.e., the " city of walls." 6. Makha-taui,
i.e., "the balance of the two lands." In the city of Memphis or its
neighbourhood were the temjDles of Ptali, Sekhet, Bast, Hathor,
Osiris, Seker, and I-em-hetep, the most important being the
Het-aa, | ^ j^. "the house of the Aged One," i.e., Ra. In
the temple called Ankh-taui, ■¥- =^^j were the sacred persea
and acacia trees ; in Hekennut, | ''yr^ ^ ,
Osiris was worshipped ; in Het-utet, J ^
V "^ "^ S ' ^•®'' " ^o^s6 of the begetter," the
cult of Khnemu was observed ; another sacred
place was called the "Path of Anubis,"
riirrr
^
n I ; and another
Y* Ta-het-pa-Aten, ^ ^ f
I /wwv\ I.e.,
1 o ' '
the " House of the Disk"; and in Tepeh-tchat,
nil "^ ' ^^^ y®^ another sacred tree.^
The Serapeum, which was discovered
by M. Mariette in 1868, was known by
the name of " ISTeter-het per en Asar-Hap,"
1 """^ ^ ^AJ\ ^ ' ^ <iistrict called Balitet,
§ ^ ^, was the centre of the worship of
Seker ; the district of Pa-penat, D
was the centre of the worship of Bast ; Osiris
~^ ^ ; Hathor was
n e^:^^ ]l fi ^ ; Khnemu was
I AAAAAA i!/ I W
Asar-Hapi (Serapis).
was adored in the district of Hekennut,
adored in the district of Smen-Maat, , . ii u ^^ ?
I AAAAAA 4i' I w
adored at TJafet, ^ ^ ©; and Ptah and Sekhet and their son
I-em-hetep appear to have possessed temples wherein they were
worshipped exclusively. The city of Memphis is often called in
the hieroglyphic texts *' Aneb," a name which is written
V
1 I.e., " House of tlie Double which uniteth the gods."
2 See cle Rouge, Geogvaphiej pp. 4 f£.
l1
514 SEKHET AND NEFER-TEM
or Jl '", or nnn "',^ and there is no doubt that the appellation
of "Walls" was given to it because of its strong fortifications.
Once a year the priests of Ptah-Seker-Asar formed a solemn
procession, and led by the Sem-priest, ^ ^^ , and usually ac-
companied by the king, they marched all round the walls of
Memphis ; it is probable that the image of this triune god was
carried in the procession. The god Ptah himself was worshipped
in a temple on the eastern side of the city called " Aneb-abt,"
n "f ; the temple of Tenen bore the name of " Aneb Athi," y f| ® •
and Ptah-Seker-Asar was adored in a temple on the south side of
the city called " Aneb-rest-f," i.e., " his southern wall," i 3 F ^ •
The whole city was known by the name of " White Wall," ^ 9 @ ?
to which reference is made by Herodotus^ (iii. 91).
The principal female counterpart of Ptah was the goddess
Sekhet, n ^ "^ , who was at once his sister and wife, and the
mother of his son Nefer-Tem, and a sister-form of the goddess
Bast. She is generally depicted in the form of a woman with the
head of a lioness which is surmounted by the solar disk encircled
by an uraeus, O, but sometimes the disk is omitted, and a uraeus
only is seen upon her head. The name of the goddess appears in
the Pyramid Texts (Unas, line 390), where after the statement
that Unas hath proceeded from the thighs of the company of
the gods, ^^ -S mi^lll'l 5 ^^^ i^ ^^i^ *^ hnYe been conceived
by Sekhet, H®, and by Sheskhentet, ™f|||]^5'^^^ V Sothis,
(1 J ^ n A "^ . In comparatively late dynastic times Sekhet and
Bast were identified with forms of Hathor, and were regarded as
the goddesses of the West and the East respectively, just as Nekhe-
bet and Uatchet were the goddesses of the South and the North
respectively. Each goddess had the head of a lioness, but the body
of Sekhet is said to have been draped in a red garment Avhilst that
of Bast was arrayed in a green garment. Several special forms of
Sekhet are known to have existed, viz., Sekhet, lady of Rekht,
1 Brugsch, Diet. Geog., p. 55. ~ Iv rw A^vkw Tct'xet '^4' ^'' Me'/x^i.
SEKHET-MEHENET 515
0®^^.=:^^'^'^©, Sekhet, lady of Sa, "^ ' ©, Sekhet,
lady of Rehesani, <=> ft 1 [j=p , Sekhet, the great lady, the
queen of Ant, ^ Q ^^ Sekhet in Bashu, J [] n^n p ^ ©, Sekhet
in Sah, «. :^ ©, Sekhet-Nut in Het-khat, P ^ ® ^ " |\ D ^,
and Sekhet in Nefer (?)-Shuu, J oa ^ ^ © . The principal titles
of Sekhet were " Mighty lady, lady of Flame, Tefnut in Senemet,"
— AAAAAA 1 . "greatly beloved one of
^ o — c. '* o D ^
Ptah, lady of heaven, mistress of the two lands," ^ |
^=^^ __ ; " lady of Tep-nef," , ,,_ ^©; '' lady of T char,
'^ '^^"^ y J\ , and of Sehert, ry-i "; "chief of the Libyan
lands, mistress of Pa-mertet," "^ r=^ | 9 ^ i ^
The name " Sekhet " appears to be derived from or connected
with the root sekhem, 1 ^ ^^^ V )\, "to be strong, mighty, violent,"
and the like, and as she was the personification of the fierce,
scorching, and destroying heat of the sun's rays, these attributes
would be very suitable for her character. In the form of the
serpent-goddess Mehenet, °^ 9, ^^^^^^ 4h ^' ^^® ^^^^ ^P ^^^' position
on the head of her father Ra, and poured out from herself the
blazing fire which scorched and consumed his enemies who came
near, whilst at those who were some distance away she shot forth
swift fiery darts which pierced through and through the fiends
whom they struck. In a text quoted by Dr. Brugsch ^ she is made
to say, "I set the fierce heat of the fire for a distance of millions
" of cubits between Osiris and his enemy, and I keep away from
" him the evil ones, and remove his foes from his habitation." One
of the commonest names of the goddess is " Nesert," i.e.. Flame, as
a destroying element, and in texts of all periods she plays the pait
of a power which protects the good and annihilates the wicked.
Var.
mrp
Q c. ^ ^f?
2 Religion, p. 520.
516 SEV'EN GODS OF LEARNING
In some aspects she may be compared with Uatchet, of whom a
well-known name is " Lady of flame." We have already said that
in some respects Sekhet may be regarded as a form of Hathor and
Net, and indeed several of the titles of the last named goddesses
are bestowed upon her, e.g., " Lady of Amentet, lady of Manu
" (i.e., the mountain of the setting sun), the queen of the Libyan
" lands," etc. ; these appear to suggest a western or Libyan origin
for the goddess.
In connexion with Sekhet and her relationship with Hathor,
Net, and Maat must be mentioned the Seven Wise Ones of the
goddess Meh-urt, who too-ether with Thoth, ^5^^^, Tekh,
planned the world ; they were born of Meh-urt, °^ ^^^ '^^-^ ,
at the feet of Nu, t=t , in their home in Nehet-rest,
|-T-| ^ JL , and they came forth from the water, from the
pupil of the Eye of Ra, and they took the form of seven hawks
and flew upwards, and together with Asten, n M ^^^ Ml , a form of
Thoth, they presided over learning and letters. The names of
these Seven Wise Ones, I "^ Cl P ^ ^f) i '" , are: — Nefer-hati,
Aper-pehui, Neb-Tesheru, Ka, Bak, Khekh, and San.^ Ptah,
as the master architect and workman who carried out the designs
of Thoth and his Seven Wise Ones, partook, in some respects, of
the characteristics of them all, and as Sekhet was his female
counterpart she appears to have acquired some of their attributes
also, because Thoth was in reality only a personification of the
intelligence of Ptah. It is in this way that Sekhet becomes
identified with the goddess Maat, for Maat was the inseparable
companion of Thoth, and inasmuch as Thoth was contained in
Ptah, Maat became the female counterpart of Ptah and a sister
form of Sekhet. In one of the titles of Sekhet given above, the
goddess is identified with Tefnut, the female counterpart of Shu ;
A cj] ' — " — ^ ^ ' ^^^ Dumichen, Tempelinschriften, pi. 25 ; Brugsch,
Religion, p. 522.
SEKHET, BAST, PAKHT 517
this need cause no surprise, because Tlioth was only the Hermo-
politan form of Shu, and Tefnut was therefore his female counter-
part, and as Ptah absorbed Thoth, that is to say, Shu, the female
counterpart of Ptah (i.e., Sekhet) absorbed the female counterpart
of Thoth, or Shu (i.e., Tefnut). In many texts Sekhet is called
the " Eye of Ra," ^ , and in a scene reproduced by Lanzone ^ we
see the goddess in the form of a woman, with the Utchat, "^g , in
place of a head, kneeling upon a rectangular throne, whilst a hawk
with outstretched wings stands behind her. Her titles in this
form are, " Great lady, beloved of Ptah, holy one, powerful one,
" dweller in xit-Tefnut," "^ ^ <v^ .
We have already mentioned the small porcelain figures of
Ptah-Seker-Asar, and seen how they were intended to represent
the union of the powers of the three great gods whose names are
here joined together, and we must now note that on the backs of
certain examples we find outlined the form of a goddess, who
might be identified with any of the female counterparts of the
great gods to Avhom the head of a lioness Avas given by Egyptian
sculptors and artists. The goddess here found, however, is Bast,
^ ^ J , who was for some time confounded by Egyptologists with
the o'oddess Pekheth, £ s=^ _2^ , or Pekhet, _ ^ , or Pekh,
° tSj, the Cat or Lioness deity of Pekhit, ^ flfl t^@5 ^^ honour
of whom a temple of Pekheth, tS. \zrz2 , was hewn out of the
solid rock in the mountain near the modern village of Beni
Hasan in Upper Egypt ; this temple is known by the names of
" Stabl al-Antar," and '' Speos Artemidos." The name Pekht, or
Pakht, or Pasht means the " tearer," and is, of course, suitable for
a goddess who possessed the attributes of the cat or lioness ; this
goddess was the lady of Ant, (1 ^ , and of Set, ^^_^^, or v-^,
the supplementary nome of which the city Pekht, ^ , was the
capital.^ Her title was "lady of Sept," ^^ A ^, i.e., of the star
Sothis, and she Avas identified with Isis and with a form of
1 Op. cit., pi. 364, No. 3. 2 Diet. Geog., pp. 225, 226.
518 SEKHET-BAST-RA
Hathor, and also with a form of Sekhet. In the great inscription
of Beni Hasan (line 18) we find the mention of Horus Pakht,
^^ □ z;^ ^ -Sa^ J and we may therefore assume that Pakht was
in some way connected with one of the forms of Horus, and that
she was a local deity of great importance.
It is jDrobable that Bast was a female counterpart of the
triune god Ptah-Seker-Asar, and that she possessed attributes
which cannot at present be clearly defined. As a nature power
she represented the gentle, fructifying heat of the sun, and its
regenerative influence in the most comforting form. In late
dynastic times Bast, and Sekhet, and Ra formed a deity whose
existence is made known to us by a Chapter in the Booh of the
Bead (clxiv.). In the vignette Sekhet-Bast-Ra is represented as a
woman with a man's head, and wings attached to her arms, and the
heads of two vultures springing either from her head or neck ; she
has the phallus of a man and the claws of a lion. One vulture's
head is like that of Pekhat, ^ I '^ ^ Pn ? and has plumes upon
it, and the other is like that of an ordinary vulture, and appears
to have plumes upon it also ; the man's head has upon it the
united crowns of the South and North, and taken together with
the phallus they indicate that the body of the woman, who is here
called Mut, was supposed to possess the generative and procreative
powers of Ra.
The text which forms the chapter is a very interesting one,
and reads : — " Homage to thee, 0 Sekhet-Bast-Ra, thou mistress
of the gods, thou bearer of wings, thou lady of the red apparel
\\\ AAAAAA 5 dnes), queen of the crowns of the South and North,
only One, sovereign of her father, superior to whom the
gods cannot be, thou mighty one of enchantments (or, words
of power) in the Boat of Millions of Years, thou who art pre-
eminent, who risest in the seat of silence, mother of Pasiiakasa
V^S^SM'^, "^^^ '^^ ^ J))? queen of Parehaqa - Kheperu
the tomb. Mother in the horizon of heaven, gracious one, beloved,
destroyer of rebellion, ofl^erings are in thy grasp, and thou art
SEKHET-BAST-RA 519
' standing in the bows of the boat of thy divine father to over-
' throw Qetu/ Thou hast placed Maat in the bows of his boat.
Thou art the fire goddess Ammi-seshet (- - ^. flfl li^r}))^
whose opportunity escapeth her not ; thy name is Tekahaeesa-
PUSAEEMKAKAREMET { J^ "^^ FD '^^ [g] [] tk tHl "^^^"^ / U
' 1 — U
^ , j . Thou art like unto the mighty flame of the
goddess Saqenaqat (^ "^ zi '^ '^ rl) ) ? which is in the
bows of the boat of thy father Haeepukakashaeeshabaiu
for behold, thus is [his] name in the speech of the Negroes, and
of the Anti, and of the people of Ta-kensetet (Nubia). Praise
be unto thee, 0 Lady, who art mightier than the gods, words of
adoration rise unto thee from the Eight Gods of Hermopolis.
The living souls who are in their hidden places praise the
mystery of thee, 0 thou who art their mother, thou source from
which they sprang, who makest for them a place in the hidden
Underworld, who makest sound their bones and preservest them
from terror, who makest them strong in the abode of everlasting-
ness, who preservest them from the evil chamber of the souls
of Hes-hra ^ f Q I 0 ,^3^ wj)? who is among the company
of the gods. Thy name is Sefi-per-em-Hes-hra-hapu-tchet-f
each side of Sekhet-Bast-Ra in the vignette is a dwarf with
two faces, one of a hawk and one of a man, and the body of each
is fat ; each has on his head the disk and plumes, ^ , and each
has one hand and arm raised after the manner of x^Lmsu, or
Min. The name of one dwarf is Atare-am-tcher-qemtu-rennu-
par - SHETA, ^ ^^^^, ,_, „^^ . <,• ^ ;v^ . / 1
.^^ ^^^^^^ , and that of the other, Pa-nemma-nemma.
^""'^^ 1\ 1\ fl ^^ 1 1 . Finally, the last name oiven to
Sekhet-Bast-Ra is Utchat-Sekhet-urt-hent-neteru, ^^ Y
^ \ ^^^ ^^ "> ^'^ nfin^e of a fiend. - I.e., "god of the terrible face."
520 FORMS OF NEFER-TEM
I Ml ' ^^^ ^^® ^^ ^^^^ *^ ^^ ^^^ emanation of Mut, " who
*^ maketh souls to be as gods, who maketh bodies to be sound, and
" who delivereth them from the abode of the fiends which is in the
" chamber of the evil one." According to the Rubric, the deceased
for whom pictures of the goddess and the two dwarfs were made
would become like the immortals, and worms would not eat his
body, and his soul would never be fettered, and he would drink
water at the source of the river, and would have a homestead of
his own in Sekhet-Aanre, and he would become a star of heaven,
and he would fight and overcome the fiends Tar, ^ "^^ .^s, ^ ,
and Nekau, ^__^ [| ^ 1^.
The third member of the Memphite triad is Nefer-Tem,
1 ^^ J) , or Nefer-Tem Q, ^si^ ^. % ^ , who is the son of Ptah and
Sekhet, or of Ptah and Pakht, or of Ptah and Bast. He is usually
represented in the form of a man who holds in his hands either
the tchdm sceptre, ^ ^^ 1 , and the symbol of life, or the lotus
sceptre surmounted by plumes, |; in these forms he is called
" Nefer-Tem ehu taui," and " Nefer-Tem khu taui ankh
^^^™'" J^ /^ =' ^^^ J^ /^ ^ t ^- T^^ ^^^^1
blue and green glazed porcelain statues of the god make him to stand
upon a lion, and sometimes he appears in religious scenes with the
lotus flower, or the lotus flower and plumes upon his head.^ In
some cases Nefer-Tem has the head of a lion, and his body has the
form of a mummy, and consistently with this his hands project
from a close-fitting garment, and he holds in them the tcham
sceptre and flail, J\ j . In the earliest times the lotus flower was
associated with Nefer-Tem, and in the Pyramid Texts we find
allusions to this fact. Thus in the text of Unas (line 392) the
dead king is compared to a lotus at the nostrils of the Great
Sekhem, (1 <=> ^^^ ^ yV B m. ^^ , and a line or two further
on it is said, " Unas hath risen like Nefer-Tem from the lotus to
^ See Lanzone, op. cit., pll. 147 and 148.
FORMS OF NEFER-TEM 521
" the nostrils of Ra, and he goeth forth from the horizon on each
" day, and the gods are sanctified by the sight of him." ^
In the Theban Recension of the Booh of the Dead (xvii. 24) is
a passage which appears to show that the attributes of Nefer-Tem
were not well defined, and we find him mentioned in connexion
with a number of gods in a manner which is hard to explain.
The text makes the deceased to beseech Ra to deliver him from
the god " whose form is hidden, and whose eyebrows are like unto
" the two arms of the Balance on the night of reckoning destruc-
" tion," and in answer to the question, " Who then is this ? " we
have the words, " It is An-a-f," i.e., the " god who bringeth his
" arm," K AA^A/v^ ^..=_ jj ,2 who is usually regarded as a form of
Amsu, or Min. The words " night of reckoning destruction " are
explained by making them refer to the burning of the damned and
the slaughter of the wicked on the block of the god by the
" Slaughterer of Souls," 'wwvn ^^:>^ ^-^ 1 ^ Tent-baiu. The opinions
of the Egyptian theologians differed greatly as to the identity of this
god Tent-baiu, for some thought he was !Nemu,^ Yiilf \\ >> <S\^
the headsman of Osiris, and others thought he might be Apep,
with one head, or Horus with two heads, or Horus the Great
of Sekhem, or Thoth, or Nefer-Tem, or Septu, k\^- ^^^^ ^®
remember that Nefer-Tem is the " young Tem," i.e., a god of the
rising sun, and that the Horus gods and Septu were likewise forms
of the rising sun, it is evident that Nemu and Apep must have had
some characteristic in common with the son of Ptah and Sekhet.
From Chapters Ixxxi., versions a and b, we learn that the deceased
had power to transform himself into a lotus ; in the first version of
the text he says, " I am the pure lotus which springeth up from
'' the divine splendour that belongeth to the nostrils of Ra," and in
the second we read, " Hail, thou Lotus, thou type of the god
a V — H 1'^ _^5^ ()^pizK _m^ oa /wvwv T ^ ^ ^ =^v^
0 M" '^
" He is one of the Forty-two Assessors in the Hall of Maati,
3 See Book of tJie Dead, cliii.A 8, 31, 32 j cliii. 5 ; clxx. 6.
522 I-EM-HETEP
" Nefer-Tem ! I am he who knoweth you, and I know your
" names among the gods, the lords of the Underworld, and I am
" one of you." The vignette of the first version is a lotus, and
that of the second is a lotus plant with a flower and buds
growing out of a ^dooI of water, and out of the flower springs a
human head, i.e., the head of the deceased.
The idea conveyed by the last vignette seems to have
originated in the mind of some early writer who was accustomed
to see the sun rise over the flooded lands of the Delta where the
lotus grew in abundance. In Chapter clxxiv. 19, the deceased
says, " I rise like Nefer-Tem, who is the lotus at the nostrils of
" Ra, when he cometh forth from the horizon each day," and in
Chapter clxxviii. 36, Nefer-Tem has the same title. We must
also note that he is the thirty-fourth Assessor in the Hall of
Maati and that the deceased makes the following address to
him : — " Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Het-ka-
" Ptah (Memphis), I have not acted with deceit, and I have not
" worked wickedness." In the late Egyptian texts Nefer-Tem
is identified with a number of gods, all of whom are practically
forms of Horus and Thoth, and in consequence the mother of each
of these gods becomes his mother.
The Egyptian texts prove that besides Nefer-Tem another son
of Ptah called I-em-hetep, fl t\ jj, was regarded as the
third member of the great triad of Memphis ; he was called
'"IixovOti^ by the Greeks, and possessed many attributes in common
with their god Aesculapius. The name of I-em-hetep means, " He
who cometh in peace," and is appropriate to the god who brought
the art of healing to mankind. The god is represented like Ptah,
Avith a bald head, and he is depicted in a seated position with a roll
of papyrus open upon his knees ; he was a god of study and learn-
ing in general, but he owed his great power to the knowledge of
medicine which he possessed. As a god of learning he partook of
some of the attributes of Thoth, and he was supposed to take the
place of this god in the performance of funeral ceremonies, and in
superintending the embalming of the dead ; in later times he
absorbed the duties of Thoth as "scribe of the gods," and the
1-EM-HETEP 523
authorship of the words of power which protected the dead from
enemies of every kind in the Underworld was ascribed to him.
In certain aspects the god had a funeral character which somewhat
resembled that of Ptah-Seker-Asar, although he is not mentioned
in the Theban Recension of the Booh of the Dead. In the " Ritual
of Embalmment"^ it is said to the deceased, "Thy soul uniteth
" itself to I-em-hetep whilst thou art in the funeral valley, and thy
" heart rejoiceth because thou dost not go into the dwelling of
" Sebek, and because thou art like a son in the house of his father,
" and doest what pleaseth thee in the city of Uast (Thebes)." The
oldest shrine of the god was situated close to the city of Memphis,
and was called " the Temple of I-em-hetep, the son of Ptah,"
0 f fi , to which the Greeks gave the name,
TO 'AcrK\y]TneLov ; ^ it stood well outside the city, and lay quite near
the Serapeum, on the edge of that portion of the desert which
formed the necropolis of the city. Under the Ptolemies a small
temple was built in honour of I-em-hetep on the Island of Philae ;
the hieroglyphic inscriptions are those of Ptolemy IV., Philopator,
but the Greek text over the door was placed there by the command
of Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. From one of the former we learn that
the god was entitled, " Great one, son of Ptah, the creative god,
" made by Thenen, begotten by him and beloved by him, the god
" of divine forms in the temples, who giveth life to all men, the
" mighty one of wonders, the maker of times (?), who cometh unto
" him that calleth upon him wheresoever he may be, who giveth
"sons to the childless, the chief l-her-heh (/T\ %, i.e., the wisest
" and most learned one), the image and likeness of Thoth the
Wise.,
I-em-hetep was the god who sent sleep to those who were
suffering and in pain, and those who were afflicted with any kind
of disease formed his special charge ; he was the good physician
both of gods and men, and he healed the bodies of mortals during
life, and superintended the arrangements for the preservation of
the same after death. If we could trace his history to its
1 See Maspero, op. cit., p. 80. 3 Brugscli, Diet. Geog., p. 1098.
3 See Brugscli, Thesaurus, p. 783 ; Religion, p. 527 ; Sethe, Imliotep, 1903.
524 1-EM-HETEP AND HERUTATAF
beginning we should find probably that he was originally a very
highly skilled " medicine man " who had introduced some ele-
mentary knowledge of medicine amongst the Egyptians, and who
was connected with the practice of the art of preserving the
bodies of the dead by means of drugs, and spices, and linen
bandages. He was certainly the god of physicians and of all those
who were occupied with the mingled science of medicine and
magic, and when we remember that several of the first kings of
the Early Empire are declared by Manetho, whose statements have
been supported by the evidence of the papyri, to have written, i.e.,
caused to be edited, works on medicine, it is clear that the adora-
tion of the god of medicine was in Memphis as old as the archaic
period. In the songs which were sung in the temple of Antuf,
the writer says, " I have heard the words of I-em-hetep and of
" Heru-tata-f, (^^ 3 tl^ mA , which are repeated over and over
"again, but where are their places this day? Their walls are
" overthrown, their seats (or places) have no longer any being, and
" they are as if they had never existed. No man cometh to declare
" unto us what manner of beings they were, and none telleth us
" of their possessions," etc. Heru-tata-f, as we knoAv from later
texts, was a very learned man, even though his speech could only
with difficulty be understood, and we also know the prominent
part which he took as a recognized man of letters in bringing to
the court of his father, Khufu, the magician Tetteta, and how his
name is associated with the " finding " of certain Chapters of the
Book of the Dead. Of the sage I-em-hetep, who is mentioned in
connexion with him, it is difficult not to think that he was famous
as a skilled physician whose acts and deeds were worthy of being
classed Avith the words of Heru-tata-f.
From the manner in which these great and wise men are
referred to it is clear that they, who were the chosen representatives
of the ablest and most learned among men, had become, even at
the time when the Songs of Antuf were composed, mythical beings
in whole or in part, and there is no good reason why I-em-hetep,
the third member of the triad of Memphis, should not be a
deified form of a distinguished physician who was attached to the
I-EM-HETEP 525
priesthood of Ra, and who flourished before the end of the rule of
the kings of the Ilird Dynasty. The pictures and figures of the
god suggest that he was of human and of strictly local origin, but
it is not evident how he came to usurp the place of Nefer-Tem at
Memphis, especially as he was not the son of Ptah by Sekhet, or
Bast, or any form of these goddesses. The worship of I-em-hetep
was commoner in the Sai'te and Ptolemaic periods than in the
Early and Middle Empires, and all the bronze figures of the god
belong to a period subsequent to the XXIInd Dynasty. The
titles given to him in the inscriptions at Philae may, it is true,
represent ancient beliefs, but it is improbable, and as he does not
appear in the Theban Recension of the Booh of the Dead it is
tolerably certain that his worship was as popular and fashionable
at Memphis immediately before and during the Ptolemaic period
as that of Amen-hetep, the son of Hapu, the famous sage who
had seen and conversed with the gods, was at Thebes about the
same time.
END OF VOL. I.
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